Court Opinion

ID: 9352032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-04 18:01:15.150477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:57:48.758689
License: Public Domain

PRECEDENTIAL

        UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
             FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                 _______________

                     No. 21-2723
                   _______________

            UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
                           v.

                MICHAEL HEINRICH,
                                  Appellant
                  _______________

     On Appeal from the United States District Court
         for the Western District of Pennsylvania
               (D.C. No. 1:17-cr-00013-001)
     U.S. District Judge: Honorable David S. Cercone
                     _______________
              Argued: September 15, 2022

 Before: KRAUSE, BIBAS, and RENDELL, Circuit Judges

                (Filed: January 4, 2023)
                   _______________
Samantha Stern               [ARGUED]
FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER’S OFFICE
1001 Liberty Avenue
1500 Liberty Center
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
       Counsel for Appellant
Adam N. Hallowell              [ARGUED]
Laura S. Irwin
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
700 Grant Street
Suite 4000
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
       Counsel for Appellee
                     _______________

                 OPINION OF THE COURT
                     _______________

BIBAS, Circuit Judge.
    Crime requires blame. Our criminal law avoids punishing
people unless they act with blameworthy intent. But when the
intended act itself is obviously wrong, it is blameworthy no
matter why the actor did it.
    Michael Heinrich undressed two preschool girls and took
pictures of their genitals. He says that he had no sexual interest
in children, claiming instead that he was trying to show chil-
dren’s purity and innocence. To support that claim, he wants to
offer an expert report analyzing his own psychology. But that
report is inadmissible because, under the law that he violated,
his reason for taking the pictures is irrelevant.
    To understand why, we must discern what the statute makes
a crime and whether that crime is constitutional. As we read it,
the statute punishes those who orchestrate objectively sexually
explicit conduct involving a minor in order to take pictures of

                                2
that conduct. Heinrich did that. And defining the crime that
way is constitutional: trying to expose children’s genitals is in
itself usually blameworthy. So we will affirm his conviction.
        I. HEINRICH UNDRESSES PRESCHOOL GIRLS
                 AND PHOTOGRAPHS THEM

   Heinrich was a longtime family friend of a couple. In early
2017, he was painting their basement. The couple had two
granddaughters, aged four and three. The girls sometimes went
down to their basement playroom while he was there.
    At least twice, Heinrich photographed the girls’ genitals.
First, in mid-January, he took four photos of the four-year-old
in footie pajamas that were unzipped to show her chest and
genitals. He also took a video of her, focused on her chest and
genitals, while telling her to “stay there, you’re fine, just fine.
You’re very pretty, stay there.” United States v. Heinrich, 2021
WL 630962, at *2 (W.D. Pa. Feb. 18, 2021).
    About a month later, he returned, bringing the girls Valen-
tine’s Day gifts. This time, he tried to pull down the four-year-
old’s pants. Though she told him no, he tore them off anyway.
Then he manhandled her into poses. For some photos, he held
her down to take close-ups of her genitals. For others, he used
his hands to spread her buttocks and genitals. He also photo-
graphed the three-year-old while she was bent over, revealing
her buttocks and genitals. At dinner, the four-year-old told her
grandparents what had happened. They called the police.
   When police interviewed Heinrich, he admitted to taking
photos of the girls but said they had been clothed. And though
he also admitted to once wiping the four-year-old’s bottom, he

                                3
said he had never touched her vagina. Presumably to prove his
innocence, he let the police search his computers, cameras, and
cell phone. Before the search, he told them that he had down-
loaded nude photos of other children.
    During that search, police found the photos and video of the
girls as well as the other child pornography. Though Heinrich
had tried to delete the images of the girls, they were still stored
on the devices. He was arrested and shown the photos and
video, and he admitted that he had taken them. Based on the
video and photos of the two girls, prosecutors charged him with
fifteen counts of producing child porn under 18 U.S.C.
§ 2251(a) and one count of possessing child porn under
§ 2252(a)(4)(B).
    Heinrich’s defense is that he lacked the mental state
required by § 2251(a). He says he was trying to show beauty
and innocence, not (as the statute puts it) “sexually explicit
conduct.” As part of this defense, Heinrich tried to present an
expert psychological report to show that he had no sexual in-
terest in the girls or the photos. Instead, the report concludes,
his “painful history as a ‘damaged’ child led him to capture on
film what he inappropriately saw as images of beauty, purity,
and innocence.” Id. at *6.
    The District Court excluded the report as confusing, mis-
leading, and letting an expert improperly opine on the defend-
ant’s mental state. Id. at *9–16 (applying Fed. R. Evid. 403,
704(b)). Heinrich pleaded guilty to three counts of producing
child porn and admitted responsibility for the other acts
charged, but he reserved the right to appeal the court’s eviden-

                                4
tiary ruling. We review the District Court’s reading of the stat-
ute de novo and its evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion.
United States v. Hodge, 948 F.3d 160, 162 (3d Cir. 2020);
United States v. Bailey, 840 F.3d 99, 117, 126–27 (3d Cir. 2016).
               II. THE ELEMENTS OF § 2251(a)
    To decide whether the expert report is relevant, we must
first parse the statute’s text. Subsection (a) provides:
   [1] Any person
          [i] who employs, uses, persuades, induces, en-
             tices, or coerces any minor to engage in, or
          [ii] who has a minor assist any other person to
               engage in, or
          [iii] who transports any minor in or affecting in-
               terstate or foreign commerce … with the in-
               tent that such minor engage in,
       any sexually explicit conduct
   [2] for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of
   such conduct … shall be punished as provided under
   subsection (e) ….
18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) (bracketed numbers, line breaks, and in-
dentations added). Heinrich pleaded guilty under part [i] as we
have labeled it, and that is the part of § 2251(a) that we usually
refer to below.
   Subsection (a) consists of two halves. Half [1] describes the
actus reus, the unlawful acts required for the crime. Half [2]

                                5
adds a mens rea, the mental state that the defendant needed to
have while doing those acts.
   We take each half in turn. Although Heinrich’s textual
argument focuses on the second half, he makes a constitutional
argument that depends on the first. So we begin by construing
subsection (a) as a whole.
   A. The first half of § 2251(a) requires that the defendant
      orchestrate sexually explicit conduct
    1. The active verbs require calculated action. One cannot
stumble into this crime. Section 2251(a)’s actus reus starts with
six active verbs. The first two verbs, “uses” and “employs” (as
a synonym for “uses”), require that the defendant engage in
sexually explicit conduct, with the child as an active or passive
participant. See United States v. Finley, 726 F.3d 483, 494–95
(3d Cir. 2013) (explaining that “a perpetrator can ‘use’ a minor
to engage in sexually explicit conduct without the minor’s con-
scious or active participation,” even if the child is asleep);
United States v. Lohse, 797 F.3d 515, 521 (8th Cir. 2015)
(“[The defendant] quite literally used [the sleeping victim] as
a sexual object in orchestrating the nine photographs. This is
not a case of mere presence.” (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted)).
    The other four verbs (plus “employs,” when used in the
sense of “hires”) involve pressuring the child, physically or
psychologically, to engage in sexually explicit conduct,
whether alone or with the defendant or someone else. See
Ortiz-Graulau v. United States, 756 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 2014).
Congress used this wide variety of verbs to reach a broad range
of activities involved in producing child porn. See id.

                               6
    All six verbs also signal that the defendant must intend
some resulting action. Use, verb (defs. II & 8b), Oxford Eng-
lish Dictionary Online (Sept. 2022) (“To put to practical or
effective use .… With to and infinitive, expressing the end or
purpose of the use.”); Employ, verb (defs. 1a, 4a), id. (“To ap-
ply (a thing) to a definite purpose; to use as a means, instru-
ment, material, etc.… To use the services of (a person) to un-
dertake a task, carry out work, etc.”); Persuade, verb (def. 2a),
id. (“To urge successfully to do something; to attract, induce,
or entice to something or in a particular direction. Also: to talk
into, to, unto a course of action, position, etc.”); Induce (def. 1),
id. (“To lead (a person), by persuasion or some influence or
motive that acts upon the will, to (into, unto) some action, con-
dition, belief, etc.; to lead on, move, influence, prevail upon
(any one) to do something.”); Entice (def. 2a), id. (“To allure,
attract by the offer of pleasure or advantage; esp. to allure in-
sidiously or adroitly. Often const. from, to (a course of conduct,
a place).”); Coerce (defs. 2a, 2b), id. (“To compel or force to
do anything. … To force into (an action or state).”).
    Yet intending the resulting action does not include intend-
ing that action’s legal status. See Rosen v. United States, 161
U.S. 29, 41–42 (1896) (“The inquiry under the statute is
whether the paper charged to have been obscene, lewd, and
lascivious was in fact of that character; and if it was … depos-
ited in the mail by one who knew … its contents, the offense is
complete, although the defendant himself did not regard the
paper as one that the statute forbade to be carried in the mails.”
(emphasis added)); Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246,
271 (1952); Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 123–24
(1974); Posters ‘N’ Things, Ltd. v. United States, 511 U.S. 513,

                                 7
524–25 (1994); McFadden v. United States, 576 U.S. 186, 192,
196 (2015).
    Indeed, courts have applied this action–status distinction to
another statute with the same verbs. The Mann Act applies to
a defendant who “knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or
coerces any [minor] to engage in prostitution or sexual activity
for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense.”
18 U.S.C. § 2422(b). We and our sister circuits have consist-
ently focused on the defendant’s actions “that are designed to
persuade the minor to commit the forbidden acts.” United
States v. McMillan, 744 F.3d 1033, 1035 (7th Cir. 2014) (col-
lecting cases); cf. United States v. Nestor, 574 F.3d 159, 161
(3d Cir. 2009); United States v. Shill, 740 F.3d 1347, 1354–55
(9th Cir. 2014). It does not matter whether the defendant knew
that the resulting act was “prostitution” or that he could be
charged with a “criminal offense.” By the same token here, the
ordinary reading of the statute requires that the defendant
intend the acts that are objectively sexually explicit. But he
need not appreciate their sexual character or legal consequence.
    On top of the six active verbs, the statute adds another verb
phrase: the intended resulting acts must themselves be
“engage[d] in.” Engage, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed.
2019) (“To employ or involve oneself; to take part in; to em-
bark on.”); cf. United States v. Laursen, 847 F.3d 1026, 1032
(9th Cir. 2017) (using “take part in” as a synonym for “engage
in” when describing § 2251(a)’s elements); United States v.
Broxmeyer, 616 F.3d 120, 124 (2d Cir. 2010) (same); United
States v. Malloy, 568 F.3d 166, 169 (4th Cir. 2009) (same).

                               8
    All these verbs connote calculated action. The defendant
cannot be a bystander. He must instigate sexually explicit con-
duct by the child, or by himself or a third party involving the
child.
    2. “Sexually explicit conduct” also limits the crime. What
qualifies as “sexually explicit conduct” further narrows the acts
that are criminal. It requires intercourse, masturbation, sadism,
masochism, bestiality, or (as relevant here) “lascivious exhibi-
tion of the anus, genitals, or pubic area of any person.”
§ 2256(2)(A). And we have further refined “lascivious exhibi-
tion” by adopting the so-called Dost factors. United States v.
Villard, 885 F.2d 117, 122 (3d Cir. 1989). Under Dost, juries
must ask these six questions:
   •   Does the picture focus on the child’s genitals?
   •   Is its setting sexually suggestive?
   •   Does it show the child posing or dressed unnaturally for
       his or her age?
   •   Is the child nude or partially nude?
   •   Does the picture suggest sexual willingness or coyness?
   •   Is the picture intended or designed to elicit the viewer’s
       sexual response?
Id. At least two of these factors must be present, but not all of
them need be. Id.
    All these questions are objective. It does not matter whether
the defendant subjectively intended the conduct or depiction to
be “sexually explicit” or “lascivious.” True, the sixth factor
asks how the pictures were “intended or designed” to affect

                               9
viewers. But that phrase just tells us to ignore how a particular
viewer reacted. “We must, therefore, look at the photograph,
rather than the viewer.” Id. at 125. “[T]he sixth Dost factor,
rather than being a separate substantive inquiry about the pho-
tographs, is useful as another way of inquiring into whether any
of the other five Dost factors are met.” Id. In short, the sixth
factor reminds us to look at the picture as a whole—an objec-
tive inquiry.
    And though these factors might seem to sweep in appar-
ently innocent conduct like medical photos or children at play,
there are at least two built-in protections against that. First,
“sexually explicit” and “lascivious” are ordinary, common-
sense concepts. The Dost factors are simply helpful guidelines,
not a checklist to be applied mechanically. See United States v.
Larkin, 629 F.3d 177, 182 (3d Cir. 2010).
    Second, the ultimate inquiry is holistic: the jury must con-
sider the “overall content of the visual depiction, taking into
account the age of the minor.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted). For medical photos, juries may consider that a photo
focuses on a rash or other physical abnormality and that the
pose was no more unnatural than needed to display the condi-
tion. And many photos of children at play do not involve using
or inducing the minor to engage in anything. If a photographer
does influence a minor’s pose or behavior, the same holistic
analysis should distinguish innocent beach or bathtub photos
from child porn. See United States v. Knox, 32 F.3d 733, 750
(3d Cir. 1994); Doe v. Chamberlin, 299 F.3d 192, 196–97 (3d
Cir. 2002) (finding a collection of beach photos non-
lascivious).

                               10
    In sum, § 2251(a)’s actus reus requires proof beyond a rea-
sonable doubt that the defendant engineered conduct involving
a child that the jury, considering all the facts and context, finds
sexually explicit.
   B. The second half of § 2251(a) requires only that the
      defendant specifically intend to take a picture of the
      conduct that he orchestrated
   1. “Such” means “that.” Now we turn to the second half of
subsection (a), where Heinrich mounts his defense. To be
guilty, a defendant must engineer the sexually explicit conduct
“for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such con-
duct.” § 2251(a) (emphasis added). Heinrich’s statutory argu-
ment turns on the word “such.”
    Heinrich contends that “such conduct” means sexually ex-
plicit conduct as a category. He reads “such” to mean “of the
character, quality, or extent previously indicated or implied.”
Reply Br. 10 (quoting Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dic-
tionary (9th ed. 1983)). Because “such conduct” refers back to
“sexually explicit conduct” as a category, he argues, the gov-
ernment must prove that his purpose was to depict sexually ex-
plicit conduct, not “purity and innocence.” Reply Br. 20. It is
not enough that the girls’ acts were objectively explicit;
instead, he says he must have intended for the conduct he de-
picted to be sexually explicit. Under his reading, the explicit-
ness inquiry is subjective.
   Not so. “Such” in this statute means “that.” It refers to the
discrete acts described in the first half. Such, Garner’s Diction-
ary of Legal Usage (3d ed. 2009) (“[W]hen used as a

                                11
demonstrative adjective to modify a singular noun, such typi-
fies legalese,” in part because of the misconception that it is
“more precise than the, that, or those.”); Such (def. 2), Black’s
Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019) (“That or those; having just
been mentioned.”).
   That is how the rest of the statute uses “such.” Just seven-
teen words earlier, “such” is used to mean “that.” Recall that
part [iii] applies to anyone
   who transports any minor in or affecting interstate or
   foreign commerce … with the intent that such minor en-
   gage in, any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of
   producing any visual depiction of such conduct ….
18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) (emphases added). The first use of “such”
must mean “that.” Heinrich’s definition cannot apply there
because there is no “character” of the minor: the statute refers
to any minor. We presume that when Congress repeats the
same word close together, it means the same thing each time.
See HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refin., LLC v. Renewable Fuels
Ass’n, 141 S. Ct. 2172, 2177 (2021). That presumption is bol-
stered by parallel usage: both times, “such” modifies a noun
that was previously modified by “any.”
    That is just the closest example. Section 2251 repeatedly
uses “such” to mean “that.” See, e.g., § 2251(a) (“[a]ny person
… such person”; “any visual depiction … such visual depic-
tion”); § 2251(b) (“[a]ny parent … such parent”; “a minor …
such minor”; “any visual depiction … such visual depiction”);
§ 2251(c) (“any visual depiction … such visual depiction”);
§ 2251(d) (“any visual depiction … of a minor engaging in
sexually explicit conduct and such visual depiction is of such

                               12
conduct”; “[a]ny person … any notice … such person … such
notice”); § 2251(e) (“[a]ny individual … such person”).
    Finally, Heinrich’s interpretation conflicts with our prece-
dent and common sense. As noted, “sexually explicit” is objec-
tive. We do not ask whether a particular defendant was
aroused. Doing so would risk criminalizing “[p]rivate fanta-
sies” based on “otherwise innocent photo[s].” Villard, 885 F.2d
at 125 (internal quotation marks omitted). Yet Heinrich would
have us read a subjective inquiry into the statute, potentially
tipping the scales against a different defendant. Whether a
defendant took a sexual interest in the picture is irrelevant—
for conviction or acquittal.
    So Heinrich had to engineer the acts with the intent to take
pictures of them. But he did not have to intend that the pictures
be sexually explicit.
    2. Heinrich’s counterarguments fail. Heinrich says that if
Congress had meant “that,” it would have used “that.” But he
points to no statutory clues that distinguish “such” from “that.”
The two words can mean the same thing. So Congress was free
to choose either one.
    Nor does our reading make “of such conduct” surplusage.
Without the phrase “of such [that] conduct,” the statute could
be read to punish taking a picture of anything once the defend-
ant uses a child to engage in sexually explicit conduct. Though
that reading would have been unnatural, Congress prevented
any misunderstanding by requiring the picture to be “of such
conduct.”

                               13
   Finally, the rule of lenity does not apply. Lenity kicks in
only when “a reasonable doubt persists” even after judges have
exhausted all the tools in their statutory-interpretation toolbox.
Moskal v. United States, 498 U.S. 103, 108 (1990). But no such
doubt remains here.
   C. Our precedent does not require more
    Next, Heinrich claims that Crandon v. United States sup-
ports his reading of the statute. 173 F.3d 122 (3d Cir. 1999).
He points out that Crandon involved a Sentencing Guideline
with a purpose requirement worded like the one in § 2251(a).
But that case did not adopt his reading. Crandon argued that he
had taken pictures to memorialize his love for the girl he had
photographed, not to capture sexually explicit conduct. Id. at
129. True, we said this purpose was “arguably different from
that proscribed by [U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(c)(1)].” Id. And we
stressed the need to be sure “that the defendant’s purpose was,
in fact, to create pornographic pictures.” Id.
    Yet Crandon’s holding was deliberately narrow. We
decided only that “some inquiry should have been made into
Crandon’s purpose, motivation, or intent.” Id. at 129–30. We
rejected the government’s argument that “any person who
takes [a sexually explicit] picture a fortiori has the purpose of
producing a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct,
regardless of what the defendant may have to say about his or
her state of mind.” Id. at 129 (emphasis in original). That re-
jection was unremarkable: the Guideline requires that the de-
fendant orchestrate the conduct for the purpose of producing
the picture, not merely that it happened and the defendant then
took a picture. And because Crandon had been in a months-long

                               14
relationship with the minor and had taken dozens of nonsexual
photos, that purposeful link was less than clear. Id. at 125, 130.
Against that uncertain backdrop, the district court had not con-
sidered his purpose at all. Id. So we could not decide whether
he had the required purpose. And although we thought that
Crandon’s position might be “arguabl[e],” we notably left open
“whether [his] distinction ultimately even makes any differ-
ence.” Id. at 129–30.
   Plus, Crandon was interpreting a Sentencing Guideline.
Although its purpose requirement is similarly worded, we
simply had no occasion to construe § 2251(a)’s mens rea
requirement. Id. at 128–29. At sentencing, courts have long
considered purpose, motive, and myriad other factors. See, e.g.,
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). We will not read Crandon beyond the
Guideline it was interpreting.
    So the best reading of the statute’s text requires that Hein-
rich must have actively engineered conduct involving a minor
for the purpose of taking a picture of that conduct. And that
conduct must in fact have been sexually explicit. But he need
not also have intended that the act or the picture be sexually
explicit.
         III. SECTION 2251(a) IS CONSTITUTIONAL
     Fighting this conclusion, Heinrich claims that our reading
of the statute conflicts with the Constitution in two ways: First,
it ignores the presumption that crimes require criminal intent.
And second, it is overbroad. Both arguments hinge on the same
premise: if the crime reaches defendants who do not subjec-

                               15
tively see the acts as sexually explicit, it “criminalize[s] other-
wise innocent conduct.” Appellant’s Br. 34 (quoting United
States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 72 (1994)).
    These arguments fail. The presumption of criminal intent
requires only that the defendant intend the conduct that the jury
finds objectively sexually explicit. He need not also know that
he is causing or photographing conduct that is sexual or meets
the legal definition of “sexually explicit.” And longstanding
precedent dooms his overbreadth claim.
   A. The most straightforward reading of § 2251(a)
      requires enough intent
    Criminal guilt flows from a “vicious will.” Morissette, 342
U.S. at 251 (quoting 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries
*21). So to be criminal, “wrongdoing must be conscious.” Id.
at 252. This awareness puts a defendant on notice of his wrong-
doing and is thus a cornerstone of criminal due process. See
Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225, 227–30 (1957). As a rule,
then, prosecutors must prove that defendants were aware of
“the crucial element separating legal innocence from wrongful
conduct.” X-Citement Video, 513 U.S. at 73. A law that brands
defendants as criminals without proof of that awareness raises
“serious constitutional doubts.” Id. at 78.
    To avoid these constitutional doubts, we sometimes depart
from the “most natural grammatical reading” of a criminal stat-
ute. Id. at 68–69. Two types of criminal laws justify that
departure.
    First, there are statutes that omit any mental state. For those
statutes, we supply “only that mens rea which is necessary to

                                16
separate wrongful from otherwise innocent conduct.” Carter v.
United States, 530 U.S. 255, 269 (2000) (internal quotation
marks omitted). But § 2251(a) expressly requires a mental
state: “for the purpose of producing a visual depiction.” So it
does not fall into this category.
    Second, for statutes that already require some mental state,
we occasionally broaden “the scope of that provision.” Ruan v.
United States, 142 S. Ct. 2370, 2377 (2022). To define who is
culpable, a mental-state requirement must apply to the particu-
lar fact that transforms “otherwise innocent conduct” into a
criminal act. X-Citement Video, 513 U.S. at 72. If it does not,
we read the requirement broadly enough to do so. Ruan, 142 S.
Ct. at 2377.
    Heinrich says we face this second situation. If § 2251(a)
requires only the purpose to take a photo, he says, then it does
not require any mental state for the crucial element separating
innocent from wrongful conduct. Put differently, he says that
taking a photo of “something is not what makes the conduct
‘wrongful.’ ” Elonis v. United States, 575 U.S. 723, 737 (2015)
(emphasis in original). Instead, the sexually explicit “charac-
ter” of the photo is what makes it criminal, and Heinrich argues
that the statute’s purpose requirement must also apply to that
element. Id. at 739 (emphasis in original).
   For some criminal statutes, Heinrich might have a point.
But here, “sexually explicit conduct” comprises only clearly
wrongful acts. So the most natural grammatical reading will do.
   Subsection (a) already ensures that the defendant is aware
of “the full significance of his conduct.” Rehaif v. United
States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2198 (2019) (internal quotation marks

                              17
omitted). Recall the series of active verbs and phrases. All the
verbs connote action calculated to achieve a particular end.
That end is a series of acts that objectively adds up to “sexually
explicit conduct.” So when the defendant “uses” a minor as a
means “to engage in” the forbidden conduct himself or “in-
duces” the minor “to engage in” the conduct, he necessarily
acts knowingly.
    The Constitution does not require more: “In some cases, a
general requirement that a defendant act knowingly is itself an
adequate safeguard.” Elonis, 575 U.S. at 736 (emphasis in orig-
inal). This is such a case. True, the “sexually explicit” character
of the conduct is what makes it wrongful. But just as a defend-
ant’s ignorance of the law is no excuse, so he also need not
know that the conduct is of a sexual nature or “lascivious.”
§ 2256(2)(A)(v); see Elonis, 575 U.S. at 734–35; McFadden,
576 U.S. at 192, 196. Instead, once a defendant tries to engi-
neer the “exhibition of the anus, genitals, or pubic area,” he is
already “alerted to the probability of strict regulation.”
§ 2256(2)(A)(v) (emphasis added); Staples v. United States,
511 U.S. 600, 607 (1994).
    Some conduct is obviously wrongful. We expect a defend-
ant to know that he may not forcibly take money from a bank
(even if he genuinely thinks the money is his). Carter, 530 U.S.
at 269–70. Likewise, “one would hardly be surprised to learn”
that he may not put children in lewd poses and photograph their
exposed genitals. United States v. Freed, 401 U.S. 601, 609
(1971). That fits with how we treat sex offenses against chil-
dren. Traditionally, a statutory-rape defendant must knowingly
have sex but need not know that his victim is a child. See
Morissette, 342 U.S. at 251 n.8; see also United States v.

                                18
Tyson, 947 F.3d 139, 146–47 & n.9 (3d Cir. 2020) (holding
that § 2251(a) does not require knowledge of the victim’s age).
Sex acts, especially with people who might be children, are not
run-of-the-mill interactions. The law thus requires defendants
to learn their sexual partners’ ages. So too here. Exhibiting a
child’s genitals is not commonplace, and it “falls outside the
realm of the ‘otherwise innocent.’ ” Carter, 530 U.S. at 269–70.
    And a lesser mental-state requirement makes sense when
defendants are in the best position to know the facts that make
their conduct wrongful. That is how the Supreme Court distin-
guished the mental state required for shipping, distributing, and
receiving child porn from that required for producing it.
X-Citement Video, 513 U.S. at 72 & n.2, 76 n.5. The Court read
“knowingly” in § 2252 to apply to all the elements of that crime
to protect, for instance, unwitting mailmen who “knowingly
transport[ ]” packages that happen to contain child porn. Id. at
69. We do not expect magazines and films to be criminalized,
so merely transporting those items does not signal the need for
caution. Id. at 71. Photographers, by contrast, see their subjects
nude or semi-nude, pose them, and can verify their ages. See
id. at 72 n.2, 76 n.5. So once they induce children to engage in
sexualized conduct, they are more familiar with—and more
culpable for—the acts that follow. “It thus makes sense to im-
pose the risk of error on producers” of child porn. Id. at 76 n.5
(interpreting § 2251).
    Similarly, one does not expect the government to criminal-
ize speech—even speech that might be received as a threat.
Thus, Elonis read a ban on communicating threats to require a
defendant’s awareness of “the threatening nature of the com-
munication.” 575 U.S. at 737–38. The Court worried that a

                               19
speaker could be unaware of his wrongdoing if he communi-
cates something that is intended as a joke but received as a
threat. Id. at 733. So, the Court insisted, he must have some
mental state to communicate something threatening. See id. at
737, 739–40. Section 2251(a) is not analogous. The defendant
should expect to be answerable for the acts that the statute
criminalizes. So he need not appreciate the sexual “nature” of
those acts to be aware of his wrongdoing.
    At last, we return to Heinrich. The first half of subsec-
tion (a) effectively isolates wrongful conduct: the defendant
must actively cause the minor to take part in conduct that the
jury finds sexually explicit. So we need not warp the second
half of the subsection. Heinrich had the intent required for both
halves. As he admits, he intentionally posed the girls with their
genitals exposed for the purpose of photographing them. That
is enough.
   B. The statute is not overbroad
    Heinrich also objects that § 2251(a) is overbroad because it
reaches protected speech. But this argument fails too. To vio-
late the First Amendment, the “statute’s overbreadth [must] be
substantial, not only in an absolute sense, but also relative to
the statute’s plainly legitimate sweep.” United States v.
Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 292 (2008) (emphasis in original).
Heinrich bears the burden of showing substantial overbreadth.
Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113, 122 (2003).
    This crime is not overbroad. It “precisely tracks the mate-
rial held constitutionally proscribable in Ferber,” that is, “ma-
terial depicting actual children engaged in sexually explicit
conduct.” Williams, 553 U.S. at 293 (referring to New York v.

                               20
Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 762 n.15 (1982)). Any risk of “chill[ing]
some protected speech … is significantly outweighed by the
Government’s compelling interest in protecting children from
child pornography.” Tyson, 947 F.3d at 148; accord Ferber,
458 U.S. at 763–64.
           IV. THE COURT PROPERLY EXCLUDED
                 THE EXPERT TESTIMONY

    Now that we know what § 2251(a) requires, we can address
Heinrich’s precise evidentiary claim. Did the District Court err
in excluding expert testimony suggesting that Heinrich photo-
graphed the girls to create art, not sexually explicit pictures?
No, it did not. That testimony is irrelevant and risks confusing
and misleading the jury.
    “[E]vidence of mental abnormality [is admissible] on the
issue of mens rea only when, if believed, it would support a
legally acceptable theory of lack of mens rea.” United States v.
Pohlot, 827 F.2d 889, 905–06 (3d Cir. 1987). The report here
does not disprove Heinrich’s intent. It casts no doubt on his
intent to strip the girls, pose them, and take their pictures.
Rather, it addresses Heinrich’s purpose for taking the photos.
But that purpose is irrelevant to the statute.
    In any event, the District Court properly construed the stat-
ute and excluded the report under Rule 403. The report dealt
only with whether Heinrich thought that the photos were sex-
ually explicit. If the court had admitted it, the jury might have
mistakenly inferred that those subjective beliefs mattered. So
the court properly excluded the report to avoid confusing and
misleading the jury. And contrary to Heinrich’s assertion, “rea-

                               21
sonable exclusion of evidence under the ‘standard rules of ev-
idence’ does not violate” his constitutional right to present ev-
idence. Orie v. Sec’y, Pa. Dep’t of Corr., 940 F.3d 845, 855
(3d Cir. 2019) (quoting Montana v. Egelhoff, 518 U.S. 37, 42
(1996)). Because Rule 403 suffices, we need not reach the
court’s other reason for excluding the report.
                          * * * * *
    Blameworthiness is the foundation for punishing crime. A
defendant must have some mental state about the elements that
distinguish guilty from otherwise innocent conduct. The
defendant charged with producing child porn must both use a
child to engage in sexually explicit conduct and intend to take
pictures of that conduct. That intent is enough to screen out
innocent conduct; scheming to expose a child’s genitals and
photograph them is not typically innocent. So the defendant
need not also intend that the conduct or pictures be sexual in
nature or sexually explicit. We will thus affirm.

                               22