Court Opinion

ID: 9940698
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-14 23:00:41.391247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:45:35.537813
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 23-1542
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                   Plaintiff-Appellee,
                                 v.

CHRISTOPHER K. CHRISTOPHEL,
                                               Defendant-Appellant.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
                    Southern District of Illinois.
          No. 4:20-CR-40069-JPG-1 — J. Phil Gilbert, Judge.
                     ____________________

  ARGUED JANUARY 23, 2024 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 14, 2024
               ____________________

   Before ROVNER, BRENNAN, and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
    ROVNER, Circuit Judge. Christopher Christophel was con-
victed by a jury of knowingly attempting to persuade, induce,
or entice a minor to engage in sexual activity. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 2422(b). On appeal, he argues that the district judge erred
by giving a jury instruction that misstated the elements of the
crime. However, because the jury instructions, when consid-
ered as a whole, accurately summarized the law, and because
2                                                  No. 23-1542

in any case Christophel was not prejudiced by any error, we
aﬃrm the judgment.
    FBI agents conducted an undercover operation to identify
persons soliciting sex from minors. As part of the operation, a
federal agent, posing as a 15-year-old girl named Halle,
posted “looking for a ride” in the “hookup” section of
Craigslist. On June 26, 2020, Christopher Christophel re-
sponded to the post. Referring to Halle’s age and her interest
in a “ride,” Christophel said: “That’s jail time.” But he never-
theless continued the conversation. He asked whether Halle
looked “young,” and Halle responded with pictures of a
young-looking woman. Christophel replied, “You’re cute,”
and later, “I bet all the boys are after you.”
   Christophel and Halle then began discussing where they
would meet and the sexual acts they would perform. Christo-
phel asked Halle what she wanted to do with him, and after
she suggested oral sex, he asked if she had “a place” to meet
because he could not let his “roommates ﬁnd out about” her.
Halle replied that she was at her parents’ house, about an
hour from Christophel’s location. She added that her parents
were away. Christophel told her that he could not “guarantee
anything [would] happen,” but he asked for her phone num-
ber in order to continue their conversation. Halle responded
with a number used by the FBI.
    Christophel then moved the conversation to text mes-
sages. He told Halle that although he was meeting with
friends that evening, he could “maybe come over” afterward,
but not if she wanted only to talk. Halle conﬁrmed that she
was “looking for sex,” and Christophel replied, “I think that
could work.” Christophel asked if Halle had protection, and
Halle told him to bring some. After exchanging several more
No. 23-1542                                                  3

messages, Christophel told Halle that he was “kinda on the
fence,” and he asked if she was willing to “just … hang out”
because he was “picturing feds waiting at [her] house like on
tv.” Halle responded that she would “prefer to have fun,” and
that this was “real, not tv.” Christophel asked for and ob-
tained Halle’s address and then told her that he wanted to
shower with her. A short time later, however, Christophel
called oﬀ the planned meetup, explaining that he was para-
noid because she was a minor, which he acknowledged was
“a big deal” and “[n]ot a slap on the wrist.”
    Christophel and Halle continued to text over the next two
weeks (some messages were benign, others sexual), and on
July 14, the two made plans to meet. Christophel texted Halle
that day, “I want you,” and the conversation then turned
graphic as he described in detail how he wanted to have sex
with her. Christophel asked if he could talk to her on the
phone, and she responded, “I can call when [you’re] serious.”
Christophel replied: “You want serious. How about we meet
tomorrow.” Halle agreed, explaining that she was presently
staying at her grandmother’s house, which was approxi-
mately a two-hour drive away from where Christophel was
located, and that they could be alone together there.
    On July 15, Christophel told Halle he was on his way but
that he was “gettin[g] nervous.” At the time Christophel was
telling Halle he was close by, FBI agents were conducting sur-
veillance in the vicinity of the proposed meeting location.
Upon arrival, Christophel parked at a liquor store near the ad-
dress that Halle had speciﬁed and as Christophel walked to-
ward the address, federal agents arrested him. The agents
searched his car and found condoms, two loaded handguns,
a mask, rope, and a handwritten note that read, “Do you love
4                                                   No. 23-1542

me?” with checkboxes for “Yes” and “No.” Christophel ad-
mitted to an agent that he had messaged Halle and that he
had wanted to see her. He said he had been hoping that she
was not really 15 years old, and that if she was a minor, he
would have left without having sex.
    Christophel was indicted on one count of attempted en-
ticement of a minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b), and
the case proceeded to trial. At the close of evidence, the dis-
trict judge gave two jury instructions relevant here. One in-
struction, which the parties had labeled Court’s Jury Instruc-
tion No. 13 (“Instruction 13”), listed the elements of the crime:
       In order for you to ﬁnd the defendant guilty of
       this charge, the Government must prove each of
       the following elements beyond a reasonable
       doubt:
       1. The defendant used a facility or means of in-
       terstate commerce to knowingly attempt to per-
       suade, induce, or entice an individual to engage
       in sexual activity.
    Later, the judge gave another instruction, which the par-
ties had labeled Government’s Proposed Instruction No. 5
(“Instruction 5”)—the instruction at issue on this appeal. In-
struction 5 clariﬁed that the government did not have to prove
that Christophel intended to have sex with Halle, just that he
attempted to entice Halle to have sex with him:
       A person attempts to commit enticement of a
       minor if he: (1) knowingly takes a substantial
       step toward committing enticement of a minor;
       (2) with the intent to commit enticement of a mi-
       nor. The substantial step must be an act that
No. 23-1542                                                    5

       strongly corroborates that the defendant in-
       tended to carry out the crime of enticement of a
       minor.
       In order to meet its burden in this case, the Gov-
       ernment must prove the defendant took a sub-
       stantial step toward causing a person he be-
       lieved to be a minor to [assent] or agree to en-
       gage in the criminal oﬀense of aggravated crim-
       inal sexual abuse under Illinois law. The Gov-
       ernment is not required to prove that the de-
       fendant actually intended to engage in illegal
       sexual activity [with] that person.
    The judge gave Instruction 5 over Christophel’s objection
to the ﬁrst sentence of the second paragraph. His contention
was that, by broadly criminalizing the act of “causing” a mi-
nor to assent to sex, the instruction misstated the elements of
the crime of enticement. A person might “cause” a minor to
“assent or agree” to sex in many ways, Christophel argued,
but the statute proscribed only persuading, inducing, entic-
ing, and coercing. Christophel requested that the judge re-
place the word “causing” in Instruction 5 with the statutory
language, but the judge ruled that the instruction was an ac-
curate statement of law as written. The district judge added,
“Until the Seventh Circuit tells me this is an erroneous in-
struction, I think it’s an accurate statement of the law, and I’m
going to give it.” A jury later found Christophel guilty, and
the judge sentenced him to the mandatory minimum of 120
months’ imprisonment.
    On appeal, Christophel argues only that the district judge
erred in giving Instruction 5. Christophel contends that In-
struction 5 described “a broader category of behavior than
6                                                    No. 23-1542

that proscribed by the statute.” Speciﬁcally, Christophel says
that the statutory phrase, “knowingly persuades, induces, en-
tices, or coerces,” 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b), prohibits only “an active
attempt to reach a mental state in the minor,” whereas the
phrase in Instruction 5, “causing … a minor to assent or
agree,” includes acts that unintentionally lead a minor to
agree to sex.
    We review de novo whether jury instructions fairly and
accurately summarize the law. United States v. Key, 889 F.3d
910, 912 (7th Cir. 2018). In so doing, however, we give the dis-
trict judge “substantial discretion with respect to the precise
wording of jury instructions so long as the ﬁnal result, read as
a whole, completely and correctly states the law.” Calhoun v.
Ramsey, 408 F.3d 375, 379 (7th Cir. 2005).
    Because jury instructions must be considered as a whole,
even if one instruction falls short on clarity, a court may con-
sider the jury properly directed where the totality of the in-
structions sets forth the proper requirements for conviction.
Key, 889 F.3d at 913. In Key, a jury found the defendant guilty
of traﬃcking a minor with the intent that the minor engage in
prostitution. Id. at 911–12. The district judge had correctly in-
structed the jury that the minor’s “consent” to “engage in
prostitution” was “not a defense” to the crime. Id. at 913. But
the judge also instructed that it was “irrelevant” if the minor
“otherwise voluntarily participated”—language that we
noted was unclear if read out of context of the ﬁrst sentence.
Id. Still, we decided that the second phrase was legally accu-
rate “when read in connection with the rest of the instruc-
tion.” Id. And we concluded that because the defendant had
presented evidence of the minor’s consent, the judge had
No. 23-1542                                                       7

reasonably tried to clarify that consent was not a defense to
the crime. Id.
    Similarly, Instruction 5, considered in its entirety, did not
misstate the law. The ﬁrst paragraph of Instruction 5 de-
scribed the oﬀense as “knowingly” taking a substantial step
with the “intent” to commit enticement of a minor. That lan-
guage provides context to resolve the potential ambiguity in
the next paragraph, which refers to the oﬀense as “caus-
ing … a minor to assent.” Although when read out of context,
“causing … assent” might refer to unintentional conduct,
here it is best understood as a shorthand reference to the spe-
ciﬁc conduct just described in the ﬁrst paragraph: knowingly
taking a substantial step with the intent to commit the oﬀense
of enticement of a minor. (This interpretation parallels a com-
mon rule used in statutory construction: The speciﬁc governs
the general. See, e.g., N.L.R.B. v. SW Gen., Inc., 580 U.S. 288, 305
(2017).) And as in Key, because the jury heard evidence that
Christophel would have left and not had sex with Halle upon
verifying her age, Instruction 5 helped to clarify that his pur-
ported lack of intent to have sex was not an available defense.
See United States v. Berg, 640 F.3d 239, 251 (7th Cir. 2011)
(“[T]he government’s burden was to prove beyond a reason-
able doubt that [the defendant] intended to persuade, induce,
or entice … a minor to engage in sexual activity—not that he
intended to engage in sexual activity.”).
    We also note Christophel’s concession that Instruction 13
accurately states the elements of the crime by using the pre-
cise statutory language (“persuade, induce, or entice”) about
the required mens rea. Thus, the jurors here could not have
found that Christophel only unintentionally caused Halle to
assent to sex—a possible interpretation of the sentence at
8                                                    No. 23-1542

issue in Instruction 5—because Instruction 13 separately re-
quired the jurors to ﬁnd that Christophel knowingly at-
tempted to persuade, induce, or entice Halle. See United States
v. Carson, 870 F.3d 584, 602 (7th Cir. 2017) (aﬃrming judg-
ment because, although one jury instruction suggested a
lower mens rea, another instruction requiring a higher mens
rea “mitigat[ed] any concern that the jurors may have held
[the defendant] accountable” under the lower mens rea).
    In the course of considering Christophel’s objections to In-
struction 5, the district judge noted that he had given the in-
struction before, and “[u]ntil the Seventh Circuit tells me this
is an erroneous instruction, I think it’s an accurate statement
of the law, and I’m going to give it.” We stress that, although
the instructions here were accurate as a whole, the speciﬁc sen-
tence at issue in Instruction 5 is potentially confusing and may
be erroneous in the context of another case. Moreover, the
purpose of Instruction 5—informing the jury that the govern-
ment need not prove that the defendant intended to have sex
with the minor—is better achieved, and the instruction made
clearer, after removing the sentence at issue in this appeal. But
we note again that we need not reverse a jury ﬁnding because
a “jury instruction could have been clearer,” provided the in-
structions, when read as a whole, contain legally accurate di-
rections to the jury. Key, 889 F.3d at 913. And in this case they
did.
    In any case, Christophel was not prejudiced by any pur-
ported error. “Even if the instruction contains an error or mis-
guides the jury, we reverse a jury verdict only if the error prej-
udiced a litigant.” Calhoun, 408 F.3d at 379. Christophel ar-
gues that Instruction 5 was prejudicial because it undermined
his defense to the jury that he never persuaded, induced, or
No. 23-1542                                                   9

enticed Halle to have sex. In his view, by relying on Instruc-
tion 5, the jury convicted him because it found that he had
unintentionally caused Halle to assent to sex. But for Christo-
phel to show prejudice, he must present a “reasonable proba-
bility that but for the error”—here, the lowered mens rea in
Instruction 5—“the outcome of the trial would have been dif-
ferent.” Carson, 870 F.3d at 603 (citation omitted).
    He cannot. Given the overwhelming evidence that Chris-
tophel acted with the requisite intent to persuade, induce, or
entice, any error would have been harmless. There is no rea-
sonable probability that the jury could have seen evidence
such as the messages which were exchanged throughout their
correspondence and in particular the messages that were ex-
changed on July 14, in which Christophel and Halle made
speciﬁc plans to have sex the next day, and still conclude that
Christophel’s enticement was unintentional. In his messages,
Christophel explicitly described his sexual interest in Halle
and then told her his plan to fulﬁl that interest by driving
nearly two hours to meet her while her guardians were away.
See Berg, 640 F.3d at 250 (arranging to meet constitutes a “sub-
stantial step” for purposes of attempted enticement of a mi-
nor). He then followed through and drove to the address that
she had provided. Christophel’s argument that he did not in-
tend for these actions to cause Halle to agree to have sex with
him has no support in the evidence.
   Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment.