Court Opinion

ID: 9915518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-05 17:00:55.230707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:15:03.492223
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 19-14969    Document: 113-1      Date Filed: 01/05/2024   Page: 1 of 56

                                                            [PUBLISH]
                                     In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                          For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                  No. 19-14969
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                        Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        JASON GATLIN,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeals from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
                      D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cr-20163-RS-1
                            ____________________

                           ____________________
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        2                       Opinion of the Court              19-14969

                                   No. 20-14149
                            ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                        Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        JASON GATLIN,

                                                   Defendants-Appellants.

                            ____________________

                  Appeals from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
                      D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cr-20163-RS-1
                            ____________________

        Before JORDAN, LUCK, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
        LAGOA, Circuit Judge:
               Jason Gatlin appeals his convictions and sentences for sex
        traﬃcking of a minor, production of child pornography, and wit-
        ness tampering. On appeal, Gatlin raises several arguments in chal-
        lenging his convictions and sentences. After careful review, and
        with the beneﬁt of oral argument, we aﬃrm Gatlin’s convictions
        and sentences as to Counts 1 and 2 but reverse his conviction and
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        19-14969                Opinion of the Court                            3

        sentence as to Count 3. We also aﬃrm the district court’s restitu-
        tion order.
           I.        FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
             A. Gatlin’s Relationship with and Trafficking of E.H.
              E.H. 1 ran away from home when she was sixteen years old.
        She began using drugs, starting with marijuana and escalating to
        MDMA. According to E.H., she was unable to get a job, so she
        traded sex for money and drugs.
               In October 2018, J.C., E.H.’s friend at the time, introduced
        E.H. to Gatlin. Gatlin and E.H. ﬁrst interacted by talking on the
        phone and eventually began a sexual relationship. When they ﬁrst
        met in person, Gatlin picked up E.H. and took her to a hotel in
        Florida City, where he paid her about $40 and gave her some drugs
        in exchange for sex. When E.H. ﬁrst met Gatlin, she told him that
        she was seventeen years old.
               Subsequently, the two stayed in contact, and E.H. believed
        that they were in a romantic relationship. E.H. began saying that
        she was eighteen years old, despite being seventeen years old, be-
        cause she wanted to protect their relationship. Gatlin and E.H.
        took at least two trips to Key West, where they stayed together in
        a house that Gatlin was working on. Throughout this relationship,
        Gatlin took at least one photograph of them having sex.

        1 The names of the minors in this case have been omitted to preserve their

        anonymity.
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        4                     Opinion of the Court                 19-14969

                During this time, Gatlin became E.H.’s de facto pimp. Gat-
        lin told at least one customer that he was E.H.’s “manager.” Gatlin
        booked hotel rooms for E.H. so that she could engage in sex with
        customers. He also paid for E.H.’s food, supplied her with MDMA,
        drove her to the Florida Keys where she would prostitute herself,
        and allowed her to stay in the house that he was working on there.
        Additionally, Gatlin coached E.H. to charge more money in the
        Florida Keys than in Miami given the high presence of tourists and
        taught her sexual “tricks” so that she could continue to engage in
        prostitution. In return, Gatlin expected a cut of E.H.’s earnings.
              The relationship between Gatlin and E.H. soured quickly.
        Gatlin became angry that E.H. was having sex with other men.
        Similarly, E.H. was irate to learn that Gatlin was having sex with
        other women.
                Things came to a head on November 30, 2018. While the
        two were staying together in the Florida Keys, E.H. threatened to
        call the police on Gatlin. The situation became violent. As a result
        of her ﬁght with Gatlin, E.H. suﬀered injuries to her nose and
        mouth. On the way back to Miami after their physical altercation,
        Gatlin threatened E.H. She became scared and asked Gatlin to pull
        over at a convenience store so that she could use the bathroom.
        Once inside, she locked herself in the bathroom and called the po-
        lice. Gatlin then left her there.
                Oﬃcers from the local sheriﬀ’s oﬃce responded to E.H.’s
        call, and after interviewing her, brought her to a hospital, where
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        19-14969               Opinion of the Court                        5

        she spoke with additional oﬃcers. Gatlin was arrested three days
        later.
                   B. Gatlin’s Pretrial Tampering with E.H.
               Before trial, Gatlin made two attempts to tamper with E.H.’s
        testimony. First, in the period after E.H. spoke with law enforce-
        ment but prior to his arrest, Gatlin gave E.H. money and food and
        told her to recant her statements to the police.
               Second, after he was arrested, Gatlin told his mother to con-
        vince E.H. to recant. In a prison call, Gatlin told his mother that
        he would “get out immediately” if E.H. said she was lying and that
        it would take “[o]ne thousand dollars,” because “[p]eople will do
        all kinds of stuﬀ for that.” Gatlin’s mother said that she understood
        and that she would “try and do the best [she] can to get [Gatlin] out
        of there.” At the time, E.H. did not have permanent housing and
        was living with Gatlin’s mother. In a later call, Gatlin told E.H.
        directly that all she had to do was go into court and change her
        statements in a sworn aﬃdavit. Sometime later, Gatlin’s mother
        drove E.H. to the public defender’s oﬃce, where E.H. tried to re-
        cant her statements to Gatlin’s public defender, who eventually re-
        layed her recantation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
        (“FBI”). E.H. continued living with Gatlin’s mother following that
        encounter. At trial, E.H. said she tried to recant her statements be-
        cause she “needed a place to stay.”
                             C. Indictment and Trial
              A grand jury charged Gatlin via a superseding indictment
        with one count of sex traﬃcking of a minor, in violation of 18
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        6                       Opinion of the Court                  19-14969

        U.S.C. § 1591 (“Count 1”); one count of production of child por-
        nography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251 (“Count 2”); and one
        count of witness tampering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b)(3)
        (“Count 3”).
              Gatlin’s trial began on September 5, 2019, and lasted eight
        days. At the close of evidence, the district court instructed the jury.
        Regarding Count 1, the district court instructed the jury that the
        government was required to prove that Gatlin traﬃcked E.H. ei-
        ther:
               (a) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that
               means of force, threats of force, or coercion will be
               used to cause the person to engage in a commercial
               sex act, or (b) in reckless disregard of the fact that the
               person has not attained the age of 18 years, or having
               had a reasonable opportunity to observe the person,
               and knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that
               the person will be caused to engage in a commercial
               sex act.
        In other words, the district court instructed the jurors that to ﬁnd
        Gatlin guilty of sex traﬃcking, they had to ﬁnd that Gatlin either
        acted: (a) by means of force, threats of force, or coercion; or (b) in
        reckless disregard of the fact that E.H. was a minor. The district
        court and the parties agreed to an interrogatory verdict form for
        Count 1. That verdict form ﬁrst asked whether the jury found Gat-
        lin guilty and, if so, whether it was by use of force or by reckless
        disregard of the fact that the victim was a minor.
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        19-14969                Opinion of the Court                            7

                At ﬁrst, the jury found Gatlin guilty on all counts. However,
        on the interrogatory verdict form, the jury did not ﬁnd either of
        the conditions necessary to trigger liability, i.e., use of force or reck-
        less disregard of the fact that the victim was a minor. Because of
        this inconsistency, defense counsel asked the district court to “di-
        rect a verdict of not guilty . . . as to Count 1,” but defense counsel
        did not specify the grounds for doing so. The district court de-
        clined. Instead, reasoning that the jury had returned an incon-
        sistent verdict and “the verdict [had not] been discharged,” the dis-
        trict court clariﬁed the instructions for the jury and directed them
        to continue deliberating. After further deliberations, the jury
        found Gatlin guilty under the second condition, i.e., that Gatlin
        acted in reckless disregard of the fact that E.H. was a minor.
                                    D. Sentencing
               The case proceeded to sentencing. Prior to sentencing, a
        Presentence Investigation Report (“PSI”) was prepared for Gatlin’s
        case. For Count 1, sex traﬃcking of a minor, the PSI noted that the
        base oﬀense level was 30. The PSI recommended a total increase
        of ten points, for an adjusted total level of 40, based on the follow-
        ing reasons: (1) E.H. had been in Gatlin’s custody, care, or supervi-
        sory control; (2) Gatlin had inﬂuenced E.H. to engage in prohibited
        sexual conduct; (3) the oﬀense involved the use of a computer;
        (4) the oﬀense involved the commission of a sex act; and (5) Gatlin
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        8                        Opinion of the Court                    19-14969

        had obstructed justice. 2 For Count 2, production of child pornog-
        raphy, the PSI noted that the base oﬀense level was 32. It adjusted
        this oﬀense level by eight points, reaching a total adjusted oﬀense
        level of 40, reasoning as follows: (1) a two-point increase because
        E.H. was in Gatlin’s custody, care, or supervisory control; (2) a two-
        point increase because the oﬀense involved a sexual act; and (3) a
        four-point increase because the material produced portrayed sadis-
        tic or masochistic conduct or other depictions of violence. Based
        on the number of oﬀenses and their levels, the PSI calculated that
        the total combined oﬀense level was 42, to which it added a ﬁve-
        point increase because Gatlin qualiﬁed as a repeat oﬀender. The
        PSI thus defaulted to the maximum oﬀense level for the relevant
        oﬀenses, which was 43. Next, in light of Gatlin’s record, the PSI
        found that his criminal history category was IV. Based on Gatlin’s
        total oﬀense level and criminal history category, the PSI found that,
        under the United States Sentencing Guidelines, he should be sen-
        tenced to a term of life imprisonment.
                The district court sentenced Gatlin to a term of life impris-
        onment—a term of life as to Count 1, 260 months as to Count 2,
        and 240 months as to Count 3, all to be served concurrently. The
        district court considered a multitude of factors, including the PSI,
        Gatlin’s “extensive” criminal history, Gatlin’s mental health issues,

        2 The adjustments to the offense level of Count 1 incorporated the sentence

        for Count 3 (witness tampering). Together, they are referred to as count
        group one in the PSI.
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        19-14969                   Opinion of the Court                                9

        Gatlin’s likelihood to reoﬀend and the need to protect the public,
        and Gatlin’s prior violations of probation. After a separate hearing,
        the district court also ordered Gatlin to pay $1,700 in restitution.
                Gatlin timely ﬁled this appeal. 3
                          II.      STANDARDS OF REVIEW
               “We review questions of constitutional law de novo.” United
        States v. Brown, 364 F.3d 1266, 1268 (11th Cir. 2004). Similarly,
        whether a jury instruction properly states the law is a legal question
        that we review de novo. United States v. Stone, 9 F.3d 934, 937 (11th
        Cir. 1993).
               “We review the suﬃciency of evidence to support a convic-
        tion de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the
        government and drawing all reasonable inferences and credibility
        choices in favor of the jury’s verdict.” United States v. Taylor, 480
        F.3d 1025, 1026 (11th Cir. 2007). “We review the district court’s ap-
        plication of the Sentencing Guidelines de novo, and its ﬁndings of
        fact for clear error.” United States v. Trujillo, 146 F.3d 838, 847 (11th
        Cir. 1998). And “[w]e review de novo the legality of an order of
        restitution, but we review factual ﬁndings underlying a restitution
        order for clear error.” United States v. Washington, 434 F.3d 1265,
        1267 (11th Cir. 2006). “For a ﬁnding to be clearly erroneous, [we]

        3 We note that Gatlin first appealed the finding of guilt as well as the sentenc-

        ing order. Gatlin then appealed in a separate notice of appeal the district
        court’s restitution order. The government moved to consolidate the appeals,
        which we granted.
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         10                      Opinion of the Court                  19-14969

         ‘must be left with a deﬁnite and ﬁrm conviction that a mistake has
         been committed.’” United States v. Rothenberg, 610 F.3d 621, 624
         (11th Cir. 2010) (quoting United States v. Rodriguez-Lopez, 363 F.3d
         1134, 1137 (11th Cir. 2004)); accord United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co.,
         333 U.S. 364, 395 (1948). Further, we review the reasonableness of
         a sentence “under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall
         v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 (2007).
                 And ﬁnally, we review errors that were forfeited because
         they were not timely raised in the district court for plain error. See
         Greer v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 2090, 2096 (2021). “To establish eli-
         gibility for plain-error relief, a defendant must satisfy three thresh-
         old requirements. First, there must be an error. Second, the error
         must be plain. Third, the error must aﬀect substantial rights, which
         generally means that there must be a reasonable probability that,
         but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been
         diﬀerent.” Id. at 2096 (internal quotation marks omitted). If a de-
         fendant establishes that these three requirements are met, we then
         may exercise our discretion to notice the forfeited error but only if
         we determine that “the error had a serious eﬀect on ‘the fairness,
         integrity[,] or public reputation of judicial proceedings.’” Id. at
         2096–97 (quoting Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1897,
         1904–05 (2018)); accord United States v. Coats, 8 F.4th 1228, 1240 (11th
         Cir. 2021).
                                   III.   ANALYSIS
                On appeal, Gatlin raises four arguments challenging his con-
         victions and sentences. Speciﬁcally, Gatlin contends that: (1) there
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         19-14969                Opinion of the Court                         11

         was insuﬃcient evidence to sustain the jury’s guilty verdicts; (2) the
         district court violated his rights by directing the jury to continue
         deliberating after they reached an inconsistent verdict; (3) the dis-
         trict court improperly applied sentencing enhancements and im-
         posed an unreasonable sentence; and (4) the order of restitution vi-
         olated his constitutional rights. We address these arguments in
         turn.
             A. Whether There Was Sufficient Evidence to Sustain the
                              Jury’s Guilty Verdicts.
               Gatlin argues that there was insuﬃcient evidence to sustain
         each of his three convictions.
                          1. Sex Traﬃcking of a Minor (Count 1)
                 We begin our analysis with Gatlin’s conviction for sex traf-
         ﬁcking of a minor. A person is guilty of sex traﬃcking of a minor
         under 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1) when he (1) “recruits, entices, harbors,
         transports, provides, obtains, advertises, maintains, patronizes, or
         solicits by any means a person,” (2) “knowing, or . . . in reckless
         disregard of the fact, . . . that the person has not attained the age of
         18 years,” and (3) “knowing, or . . . in reckless disregard of the
         fact,” that the person “will be caused to engage in a commercial sex
         act.” As to the second element, where “the defendant had a rea-
         sonable opportunity to observe the person so recruited, enticed,
         harbored, transported, provided, obtained, maintained, patron-
         ized, or solicited, the [g]overnment need not prove that the defend-
         ant knew, or recklessly disregarded the fact, that the person had not
         attained the age of 18 years.” Id. § 1591(c).
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         12                      Opinion of the Court                  19-14969

                Reviewing the record, we conclude that the elements of sex
         traﬃcking of a minor are met here. First, there was substantial
         evidence presented at trial that showed Gatlin was E.H.’s pimp,
         thereby satisfying the ﬁrst element. According to E.H.’s trial testi-
         mony, Gatlin rented a room for E.H. at a Motel 6 and drove her
         there knowing that she was going to prostitute herself in the room
         (which she then did); coached her on pricing and sexual techniques;
         and drove her to the Florida Keys, allowed her to stay with him,
         and gave her food and drugs “[w]henever [she] asked.” At the very
         least, these facts demonstrate that Gatlin “harbor[ed],
         transport[ed], provide[d],” and “maintain[ed]” E.H.                  Id.
         § 1591(a)(1); see United States v. Mozie, 752 F.3d 1271, 1286 (11th Cir.
         2014) (“[Section 1591] applies to anyone who ‘harbors’ a minor
         who ‘will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act.’ B.H. testi-
         ﬁed that she stayed at Mozie’s house for ﬁve days and four nights
         while she worked as a prostitute for him. That evidence is suﬃcient
         to convict Mozie . . . .” (citation omitted)).
                As to the second element, the evidence presented at trial
         showed that Gatlin knew that E.H. was underage. E.H. testiﬁed
         that, when she ﬁrst met Gatlin, she told him she was seventeen.
         That testimony is suﬃcient to lead a reasonable juror to conclude
         that Gatlin knew or had reckless disregard for the fact that E.H. was
         underage.
                As to the third element, the evidence showed that Gatlin
         knew that E.H. would be “cause[d] to engage in commercial sex
         acts.” See 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a). In addition to the enabling actions
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         19-14969                Opinion of the Court                          13

         Gatlin took as E.H.’s pimp discussed above, E.H. testiﬁed that Gat-
         lin expected a cut of the money she made from her prostitution.
         The evidence presented at trial also showed that Gatlin knew E.H.
         was having sex for money and that he expected to reap some of the
         beneﬁt by taking a cut of the money.
                  Gatlin argues, however, that “cause,” as used in § 1591(a),
         means “something that produces an eﬀect, result, or consequence”
         and that the “logical reading” of the statute’s language of “know-
         ing . . . the person . . . will be caused to engage in a commercial sex
         act” describes acts that the defendant intends to take, i.e., the de-
         fendant “means to ‘cause’ the minor to engage in commercial sex
         acts.” According to Gatlin, § 1591 “does not criminalize commer-
         cial sex acts with a minor in general, but makes criminal only those
         instances where a minor will be caused to engage in commercial sex
         acts through the defendant’s speciﬁc actions.” And Gatlin argues
         that any of the acts of “assistance” he purportedly provided do not
         satisfy § 1591.
                We conclude that Gatlin’s argument as to this point is with-
         out merit. Section 1591(a) criminalizes certain actions by a defend-
         ant—recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, ob-
         taining, advertising, maintaining, patronizing, or soliciting by any
         means a person—if the defendant knows that the minor “will be
         caused to engage in a commercial sex act.” § 1591(a)(1) (Emphasis
         added). As an initial matter, we have held that criminal liability un-
         der § 1591 is not conditioned on the actual occurrence of any com-
         mercial sex act. See United States v. Blake, 868 F.3d 960, 977 (11th Cir.
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         14                     Opinion of the Court                19-14969

         2017) (“[T]he commission of a sex act is not an element of § 1591.”
         (emphasis in original)). Rather, “a defendant need only put the vic-
         tim in a position where a sex act could occur, regardless of whether
         a sex act eventually did occur.” Id. (emphasis in original).
                Again, on this record, we conclude that there was suﬃcient
         evidence to support the third element of § 1591, i.e., the evidence
         was more than suﬃcient for a jury to ﬁnd that Gatlin knew that
         E.H. was a minor and knew that she would be caused to engage in
         commercial sex acts through his conduct. At trial, E.H. testiﬁed to
         the following. Gatlin knew E.H. was seventeen years old. Gatlin
         helped E.H. place online advertisements for prostitution and told
         her to charge higher prices in the Florida Keys. Gatlin took E.H. to
         a Motel 6 and paid for her room, knowing that E.H. would have sex
         for money with customers, and E.H. gave Gatlin money from pros-
         titution so that he could pay for extra nights at the Motel 6. Gatlin
         would not stay at the hotels he rented for E.H., but, on at least one
         occasion, kept a key to her room. Gatlin bought E.H. food, gave
         her money and drugs while she stayed at various motels and ex-
         pected E.H. to give him some of the money she earned from pros-
         titution. E.H. also testiﬁed that various statements she made to the
         police were truthful.
               We thus conclude that the evidence presented at trial was
         suﬃcient for a reasonable jury to ﬁnd that Gatlin knew E.H. was a
         minor and that Gatlin knew that E.H. would be caused to engage
         in commercial sex acts through his conduct. Accordingly, we af-
         ﬁrm Gatlin’s conviction under § 1591 as to Count 1.
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         19-14969               Opinion of the Court                        15

                       2. Production of Child Pornography (Count 2)
                We now turn to Gatlin’s conviction for production of child
         pornography under 18 U.S.C. § 2251. As relevant here, a person is
         guilty of violating § 2251 if he “employs, uses, persuades, induces,
         entices, or coerces any minor to engage in . . . any sexually explicit
         conduct for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such
         conduct or for the purpose of transmitting a live visual depiction
         of such conduct.” § 2251(a).
                Only the intent element—“for the purpose of producing any
         visual depiction of such conduct”—is at issue here. Gatlin con-
         tends that § 2251 requires a speciﬁc intent to produce child pornog-
         raphy and that child pornography produced incidentally to a sexual
         encounter is insuﬃcient. Gatlin also argues that “[t]he undisputed
         evidence showed that [he] engaged in sexual activity with E.H. and
         took a photo, not that he engaged in sexual activity with E.H. to
         take a photo.” (Emphasis in original).
                 Based on the evidence presented at trial, we conclude that
         the intent element was met here. Speciﬁc intent does not require
         that the defendant be “single-minded in his purpose. . . . [A person]
         ‘is no less a child pornographer simply because he is also a pedo-
         phile.’” See United States v. Lebowitz, 676 F.3d 1000, 1013 (11th Cir.
         2012) (quoting parenthetically United States v. Sirois, 87 F.3d 34, 39
         (2d Cir. 1996)). Accordingly, “[t]he government was not required
         to prove that making explicit photographs was [Gatlin’s] sole or pri-
         mary purpose” for engaging in sexual activity with E.H.; instead,
         “it was enough to show that it was ‘a purpose’ for doing so.” Cf.
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         16                        Opinion of the Court                       19-14969

         United States v. Miller, 819 F.3d 1314, 1316 (11th Cir. 2016). Moreo-
         ver, “because speciﬁc intent . . . can be diﬃcult to prove[,] . . . often
         circumstantial evidence must be introduced to allow the jury to in-
         fer intent.” See United States v. Foshee, 578 F.2d 629, 632 (5th Cir.
         1978). 4
                Here, the evidence shows that Gatlin (1) intentionally had
         sex with a minor and (2) intentionally made a recording of that act
         by using his camera phone. The jury ﬁrst could reasonably infer
         that Gatlin, during sexual intercourse with E.H., reached for his
         camera phone, unlocked the phone, and accessed the phone’s cam-
         era. Additionally, the jury could reasonably infer, based on the an-
         gle of the “live photo” in question, that Gatlin had to hold his cam-
         era phone in front of him using at least one of his hands while he
         was having sexual intercourse with E.H. Moreover, the short video
         contained in the “live photo” makes evident that Gatlin and E.H.
         “posed” for the photo by remaining still during sexual intercourse.
         In other words, for Gatlin to make the recording of the sexual act,
         he had to engage in a sexual act with E.H. and intentionally pause
         in the middle of that act to take the “live photo.” A jury could rea-
         sonably infer from that pause that, for at least some fraction of
         time, Gatlin was engaged in sexual conduct with E.H. partly for the
         purpose of recording it. Cf. Lebowitz, 676 F.3d at 1013 (“This is not
         a case of a security camera mechanically picking up a random act.”

         4 In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc),

         this Court adopted as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Cir-
         cuit handed down prior to October 1, 1981.
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         19-14969               Opinion of the Court                        17

         (quoting parenthetically United States v. Ortiz-Graulau, 526 F.3d 16,
         19 (1st Cir. 2008))). And we have previously rejected the incidental-
         pornographer argument that Gatlin raises here. See id. (“Whether
         some other sexual encounter would have occurred even without
         recording equipment is irrelevant. A reasonable jury could con-
         clude [the defendant] violated 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a).”).
               We thus conclude that there was suﬃcient evidence to sus-
         tain Gatlin’s conviction for production of child pornography and
         aﬃrm Gatlin’s conviction as to Count 2.
                             3. Witness Tampering (Count 3)
                 We next address Gatlin’s conviction for witness tampering.
         As relevant to Gatlin’s case, a person violates 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b) if
         he “[(1)] knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly per-
         suades another person, . . . or engages in misleading conduct to-
         ward another person, with intent to . . . [(2)] hinder, delay, or pre-
         vent the communication . . . of information relating to the com-
         mission or possible commission of a Federal oﬀense” “[(3)] to a law
         enforcement oﬃcer or judge of the United States.” Where a de-
         fendant acts to prevent a “person from communicating with law
         enforcement oﬃcers in general,” the intent element is satisﬁed
         where there is “a reasonable likelihood that a relevant communica-
         tion would have been made to a federal oﬃcer.” Fowler v. United
         States, 563 U.S. 668, 670 (2011) (emphasis in original) (interpreting
         18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1), a nearly identical provision); see also United
         States v. Chaﬁn, 808 F.3d 1263, 1274–75 (11th Cir. 2015) (ﬁnding plain
         error where a district court failed to apply the Fowler reasonable-
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         18                      Opinion of the Court                  19-14969

         possibility standard to § 1512(b)(3)). Thus, the intent element pre-
         sents a two-step framework. First, we must determine whether the
         defendant had the intent to mislead law enforcement in general.
         Fowler, 563 U.S. at 673. If he did, we then must ask whether there
         was a reasonable likelihood that a relevant communication would
         have been made to a federal oﬃcer. Id. at 677. The intent element
         is satisﬁed only if both prongs are met. And the government “must
         show that the likelihood of communication to a federal oﬃcer was
         more than remote, outlandish, or simply hypothetical.” Id. at 678.
                Following Fowler, our sister circuits that have considered this
         issue have diverged in their approaches to the reasonable likelihood
         standard. See United States v. Johnson, 874 F.3d 1078, 1082 (9th Cir.
         2017). In United States v. Tyler, 732 F.3d 241 (3d Cir. 2013), the Third
         Circuit held that, to establish a “reasonable likelihood,” “there must
         be evidence—not merely argument”—“of the witness’s coopera-
         tion with law enforcement.” Id. at 252 (quoting United States v.
         Lopez, 372 F.3d 86, 92 (2d Cir. 2004)). The court explained that “‘the
         government need not prove that a federal investigation was in pro-
         gress at the time the defendant committed [a] witness-tampering’
         oﬀense” in § 1512. Id. (alteration in original) (quoting United States
         v. Ramos-Cruz, 667 F.3d 487, 498 (4th Cir. 2012)). The Third Circuit
         has also held that the reasonable likelihood standard is a “relatively
         low bar,” as the government, under Fowler, “need only show that
         ‘the likelihood of communication to a federal oﬃcer was more
         than remote, outlandish, or simply hypothetical.’” Bruce v. Warden
         Lewisburg USP, 868 F.3d 170, 185 (3d Cir. 2017) (ﬁrst quoting United
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         19-14969                Opinion of the Court                         19

         States v. Smith, 723 F.3d 510, 518 (4th Cir. 2013); then quoting Fowler,
         563 U.S. at 678).
                 By contrast, the Fourth Circuit held that the federal nexus
         element of § 1512 “may be inferred by the jury from the fact that
         the oﬀense was federal in nature, plus additional appropriate evi-
         dence.” Ramos-Cruz, 667 F.3d at 497. In Ramos-Cruz, the court did
         not focus solely on the fact that the murder at issue was eventually
         prosecuted as a federal crime but also considered uncontested evi-
         dence, including (1) a state task force was formed shortly after the
         murder, which investigated the gang the defendant was a member
         of, (2) a detective’s communication with federal authorities regard-
         ing the murder, and (3) informants testifying they had spoken with
         federal law enforcement oﬃcers. See id. And, in United States v.
         Veliz, 800 F.3d 63 (2d Cir. 2015), the Second Circuit adopted the
         Fourth Circuit’s approach and found that suﬃcient evidence sup-
         ported the jury’s ﬁnding that the defendant had violated the wit-
         ness tampering statute. Id. at 74–75.
                 Here, Gatlin asserts that he lacked the requisite intent to vi-
         olate § 1512(b) because the evidence established that he asked E.H.
         to lie only to Gatlin’s public defender, not a federal oﬃcer. In ad-
         dressing this issue, we need not decide whether adopt the “addi-
         tional appropriate evidence” approach of the Second and Fourth
         Circuits, see Ramos-Cruz, 667 F.3d at 497; Veliz, 800 F.3d at 74–75,
         because we conclude that the evidence presented by the govern-
         ment in this case established only a “remote, outlandish, or simply
         hypothetical” possibility that E.H.’s recantation statements would
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         20                     Opinion of the Court                 19-14969

         reach federal oﬃcers, see Fowler, 563 U.S. at 673. Thus, viewing the
         evidence in the light most favorable to the government, no rational
         trier of fact could have found the federal nexus element of the
         crime to be met.
                As an initial matter, we agree that the record evidence
         demonstrates Gatlin’s intent to have E.H. lie by recanting her pre-
         vious statements to state law enforcement. For example, E.H. tes-
         tiﬁed that Gatlin’s mother contacted her and told her to “recant
         [her] statements to say that everything that [she] had previously
         told law enforcement was untrue.” E.H. also testiﬁed as to Gatlin’s
         attempts to persuade her to hinder the investigation. Indeed, be-
         fore Gatlin was arrested, he dropped oﬀ food and money to E.H.
         and told her to “tell them it wasn’t true.” A jury could reasonably
         infer that “them” was referring to law enforcement. And jail calls
         between Gatlin and E.H., as well as between Gatlin and Gatlin’s
         mother, further demonstrate this intent.
                 But, to prove a violation of § 1512(b), the government must
         also show that there was a reasonable likelihood that a relevant
         communication would have been made to a federal oﬃcer. Fowler,
         563 U.S. at 677. And here, while the issue is admittedly a close call,
         we conclude that the government’s evidence does not establish
         more than a “remote” or “simply hypothetical” possibility that
         E.H.’s recantation statements could have reached a federal oﬃcer.
         See id. at 678. E.H.’s statements were given to the state public de-
         fender’s oﬃce and were intended by Gatlin to inﬂuence and mis-
         lead the state prosecution—speciﬁcally, the state prosecutor, who is
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         19-14969               Opinion of the Court                       21

         a law enforcement oﬃcer under Florida law. At the time E.H. gave
         those statements, federal charges had not been ﬁled against Gatlin.
         Furthermore, the record shows that when Gatlin was arrested, he
         “thought [he] was only going to be charged with battery,” which is
         a state oﬀense.
                 We ﬁnd that this case bears marked similarities to our deci-
         sion in Chaﬁn. In Chaﬁn, we concluded that the defendant had
         demonstrated plain error as to his witness tampering conviction
         because the government had not introduced evidence showing that
         the defendant’s statements to a state law enforcement agent inves-
         tigating an alleged misuse of a jail commissary account were rea-
         sonably likely to be communicated to federal authorities. See 808
         F.3d at 1274. Rather, it was “just the opposite”: the government
         proved only that the state agent told the defendant that the local
         district attorney had initiated the investigation. Id. Thus, we rea-
         soned, had the district court applied Fowler’s standard to the evi-
         dence, the defendant’s trial on the witness tampering charge
         “would have ended in an acquittal instead of a conviction.” Id.
         Similarly here, the government did not present any evidence indi-
         cating that Gatlin knew federal oﬃcers were investigating him nor
         any knowledge regarding the federal nature of the oﬀenses when
         he sought E.H. to recant her statement. Cf. United States v. Sutton,
         30 F.4th 981, 989–90 (10th Cir. 2022) (vacating a § 1512 conviction
         where the government did not present any evidence that the wit-
         ness tampering conduct at issue “suggest[ing] the possibility of pro-
         ceedings that were likely to be federal”).
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         22                     Opinion of the Court                 19-14969

                 The government, however, argues that the evidence estab-
         lished that “the false testimony was not only likely to be, but was,
         conveyed to federal law enforcement.” In support of its argument,
         the government notes that the FBI actually received her recanted
         testimony during its investigation. We note that the Ninth Circuit
         rejected a nearly identical “actual communication” argument in
         Johnson. See 874 F.3d at 1081–82. In that case, the government ar-
         gued that Fowler was inapplicable because it involved a “hypothet-
         ical communication” as opposed to an “actual communication”
         that made its way to the federal oﬃcers in that case. See id. at 1081.
         The Ninth Circuit, in rejecting the government’s argument, found
         the position to be “a limitation that swallows the rule,” as “every
         federally prosecuted case must necessarily involve an actual com-
         munication to federal oﬃcers at some point.” Id. at 1082. Thus,
         the court reasoned, an actual communication rendering Fowler in-
         apposite would make Fowler “a nullity.” Id. We agree with the
         Ninth Circuit’s reasoning in Johnson. Indeed, if we were to con-
         clude that an actual communication to a federal oﬃcer alone satis-
         ﬁed the federal nexus requirement of § 1512(b), the reasonable like-
         lihood standard in Fowler would be sapped of meaning. See Johnson,
         874 F.3d at 1081–82. Therefore, the fact that the FBI actually re-
         ceived E.H.’s statements does not establish that it was reasonably
         likely that the communication would reach a federal oﬃcer under
         Fowler.
               The government also points to evidence showing the FBI be-
         gan investigating Gatlin for sex traﬃcking of E.H. the same night
         she was recovered. It is true that the Supreme Court explained in
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         19-14969               Opinion of the Court                         23

         Fowler that the statute can reach conduct that “takes place before
         the victim has engaged in any communication at all with law en-
         forcement oﬃcers—at a time when the precise communication
         and nature of the oﬃcer who may receive it are not yet known.”
         See 563 U.S. at 673. But in establishing the reasonable likelihood
         standard, the Court explained that, “[o]ften, when a defendant acts
         in ways that violate state criminal law, some or all of those acts will
         violate federal criminal law as well.” Id. at 676. Therefore, “where
         a federal crime is at issue, communication with federal law enforce-
         ment oﬃcers is almost always a possibility.” Id. (emphasis in origi-
         nal). Thus, the Court explained, to allow the government “to show
         only a mere possibility that a communication would have been
         with federal oﬃcials is to permit the [g]overnment to show little
         more than the possible commission of a federal oﬀense.” Id.
                  First, we note that sex traﬃcking of a minor is an oﬀense
         under both federal and Florida law. See Fla. Stat. § 787.06(3) (stating
         that any person who knowingly engages, or attempts to engage in,
         human traﬃcking commits a felony of the ﬁrst degree); Matos v.
         State, 359 So. 3d 794, 797 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2023) (explaining that
         section 787.06(3) “include[s] prostitution of a child within the deﬁ-
         nition of human traﬃcking”). Thus, Gatlin’s conduct here violated
         both state and federal criminal law, meaning that prosecution for
         his conduct was not exclusively federal. As the Court explained in
         Fowler, “where a federal crime is at issue, communication with fed-
         eral law enforcement oﬃcers is almost always a possibility.” 563
         U.S. at 673. But the government must show more than a mere pos-
         sibility, and the government’s evidence showing the opening of a
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         24                         Opinion of the Court                        19-14969

         federal investigation into Gatlin’s sex traﬃcking of E.H.—without
         more—does not show that the communication to a federal oﬃcer
         was more than remote or simply hypothetical. See id. at 673, 678.
         For example, the government did not present evidence showing
         that, at the time of E.H.’s recantation statements, Gatlin knew fed-
         eral oﬃcers were investigating him nor had any knowledge regard-
         ing the federal nature of the oﬀenses for which he was charged.
         Rather, the evidence shows that Gatlin was arrested by state law
         enforcement, that he thought he was going to be charged with bat-
         tery under state law and that he intended E.H. to lie to the state
         public defender’s oﬃce to inﬂuence and mislead the state prosecu-
         tion. And while the FBI did begin investigating Gatlin on the night
         E.H. was recovered, the government presented limited evidence at
         trial regarding the speciﬁc interactions of state and federal oﬃ-
         cials—either on sex traﬃcking cases generally or on this case spe-
         ciﬁcally. 5

         5 It is true that the government presented testimony from one local law en-

         forcement officer investigating the case who stated that he was on a joint sex-
         trafficking task force that included FBI agents and that the task forcer officers
         “always reach out to the FBI” to see if the FBI wanted to get involved in the
         case. And an FBI agent involved in the case generally stated that it was com-
         mon for him to work with state law enforcement in human trafficking inves-
         tigations. But under the specific facts of this case, relying on this limited evi-
         dence regarding the specific interactions of state and federal officials on sex
         trafficking offenses generally and this specific case alone to sustain Gatlin’s
         § 1512(b) conviction in our view would veer too close to the possibility stand-
         ard that the Supreme Court in Fowler disavowed. See 563 U.S. at 676–77.
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         19-14969               Opinion of the Court                        25

                We therefore conclude that the government’s evidence es-
         tablished nothing more than a “remote” or “simply hypothetical”
         possibility that E.H.’s recantation statements would have reached a
         federal oﬃcer. Accordingly, no rational trier of fact could have
         found the federal nexus element of the witness tampering crime,
         and we reverse Gatlin’s conviction on this count.
            B. The Court’s Direction to the Jury to Continue Deliberat-
                  ing After Returning an Inconsistent Verdict Was
                                       Proper.
                 We turn now to Gatlin’s second argument: that the district
         court violated his rights by directing the jury to continue deliberat-
         ing after they reached an inconsistent verdict. To review, the jury
         initially returned a verdict ﬁnding Gatlin guilty of sex traﬃcking a
         minor but, on the special interrogatory, failed to ﬁnd either of the
         conditions that could support such a verdict. Rather than resolve
         this inconsistency on its own one way or the other, the district
         court clariﬁed the instructions for the jury and directed them to
         continue deliberating. Defense counsel raised a general objection
         to this approach, stating that “[s]ince [the jury] found no as to both
         prongs of the statute, we’d ask that the Court direct a verdict of
         not guilty as to . . . Count 1.”
                 On appeal, Gatlin argues that, by not entering a judgment
         of acquittal as to Count 1 and instead ordering the jury to continue
         its deliberations, the district court violated the Supreme Court’s
         holding with regard to inconsistent verdicts in United States v. Pow-
         ell, 469 U.S. 57 (1984), as well as his Fifth and Sixth Amendment
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         26                      Opinion of the Court                  19-14969

         rights, including those to a fair trial and against double jeopardy.
         We begin with the Powell argument.
                    1. The District Court Did Not Run Afoul of Powell.
                 Gatlin argues that the district court ran afoul of the Supreme
         Court’s precedent on inconsistent verdicts under Powell, 469 U.S.
         57. In Powell, the Supreme Court held that where a verdict is in-
         consistent as between counts of an indictment, a guilty verdict on
         one of the inconsistent counts may nevertheless be properly en-
         tered. See id. at 69 (“[T]here is no reason to vacate respondent’s
         conviction merely because the verdicts cannot rationally be recon-
         ciled.”). Powell stands generally for the proposition that incon-
         sistency between verdicts on diﬀerent counts does not form an in-
         dependent basis for review. See id. at 66 (“The fact that the incon-
         sistency may be the result of lenity, coupled with the Government’s
         inability to invoke review, suggests that inconsistent verdicts should
         not be reviewable.”).
                There are several rationales for this rule. A conﬂicting ﬁnd-
         ing by the jury on two counts can equally reﬂect a “mistake, com-
         promise, or lenity.” Id. at 65. Moreover, where such a verdict re-
         ﬂects “jury lenity,” our review would impinge on “the jury’s his-
         toric function, in criminal trials, as a check against arbitrary or op-
         pressive exercises of power by the Executive Branch.” Id. And a
         defendant is already protected against “jury irrationality or error
         by the independent review of the suﬃciency of the evidence.”
         United States v. Mitchell, 146 F.3d 1338, 1344 (11th Cir. 1998) (quoting
         Powell, 469 U.S. at 67).
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         19-14969               Opinion of the Court                         27

                But the inconsistent verdict referred to in Powell is distinct
         from the one at issue here. In Powell, the issue was whether a jury
         could “have acquitted [the defendant] of conspiracy to possess co-
         caine and possession of cocaine, and still found her guilty of using
         the telephone to facilitate those oﬀenses.” Powell, 469 U.S. at 69. In
         other words, Powell referred to a verdict that was inconsistent be-
         tween counts. Here, we have a verdict that is inconsistent as to just
         one count.
                 The dilemma we face here is nearly identical to the one ad-
         dressed by then-Judge Gorsuch sitting on the Tenth Circuit in
         United States v. Shippley, 690 F.3d 1192 (10th Cir. 2012). In Shippley,
         the defendant was charged with conspiracy relating to a scheme to
         traﬃc “considerable amounts of high quality cocaine.” Id. at 1193.
         The jury was issued two documents to ﬁll out: a general verdict
         form and a set of special interrogatories asking which drug kinds
         and quantities were involved. Id. At the conclusion of the trial,
         “the jury returned with a guilty verdict on the general verdict form,
         [but] it answered ‘no’ to each of the special interrogatories, indicat-
         ing that Mr. Shippley conspired to distribute none of the drugs at
         issue in the case.” Id. The district court was “[p]erplexed,” “sought
         advice from counsel,” and then, after reinstructing the jury, asked
         them to “deliberate again.” Id. “[F]urther deliberations quickly
         yielded an unambiguous guilty verdict.” Id. The defendant ap-
         pealed, asserting that the district court’s direction to the jury to
         keep deliberating violated Powell. Id. at 1194.
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         28                      Opinion of the Court                   19-14969

                The Tenth Circuit ultimately rejected the defendant’s Powell
         argument. Initially, then-Judge Gorsuch distinguished Powell on its
         face, saying that “nothing in Powell . . . speaks to the propriety of
         ordering further deliberations in the face of inconsistent verdicts
         against the same defendant on the same count”; rather, it “simply
         hold[s] the district court was allowed to enter a guilty verdict on one
         count despite a logically inconsistent verdict on another.” Id. at
         1194–95 (emphasis in original). Then-Judge Gorsuch stated:
                Even accepting for argument’s sake Mr. Shippley’s
                premise that Powell . . . implicitly require[s] (rather
                than permit[s], as [it] hold[s]) a district court to accept
                a verdict logically inconsistent as between counts or
                defendants, that still does not speak to our case. In
                our case, it wasn’t just logically incongruous to enter
                the jury’s verdict, it was metaphysically impossible.
                Powell . . . involved logical inconsistencies between
                counts . . . . However illogical, the verdicts . . . could
                be given full eﬀect. This case, by contrast, involves an
                inconsistency on the same count with the same defend-
                ant—an inconsistency that simply could not have
                been given full eﬀect. Something had to give in our
                case that didn’t have to give in [Powell]. To enter an
                acquittal, the district court would have needed to dis-
                regard the fact that the jury expressly found Mr. Ship-
                pley guilty. To enter a guilty verdict, the court would
                have needed to overlook the special verdict ﬁndings
                that Mr. Shippley did not conspire to distribute any of
                the drugs at issue in the case. And nothing in Powell
                . . . speaks either explicitly or implicitly about what a
                court’s to do in these circumstances, let alone
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         19-14969                   Opinion of the Court                                 29

                 suggests the district court committed an error of con-
                 stitutional magnitude (or otherwise) in proceeding as
                 it did in this case.
         Id. at 1195 (emphasis in original).
                 We are persuaded by then-Judge Gorsuch’s reasoning in
         Shippley that directing the jury to continue deliberations under
         these circumstances was not error. Here, the district court had not
         accepted the jury’s verdict and, as a result, the verdict was not ﬁnal.
         See, e.g., Harrison v. Gillepsie, 640 F.3d 888, 899 (9th Cir. 2011) (“The
         court may . . . reject the jury’s verdict if it is inconsistent or ambig-
         uous.”). Gatlin asked the district court to enter a judgment of ac-
         quittal because the jury did not answer aﬃrmatively either of the
         special interrogatories that would allow a guilty verdict. But doing
         so would have required the district court to overlook the jury’s
         unanimous ﬁnding of guilt as to Count 1 on the general verdict
         form. And the inverse—simply accepting the general ﬁnding of
         guilt—was equally untenable. Here, as in Shippley, “it was meta-
         physically impossible” to give eﬀect to the jury’s verdict. Id.
                Because the district court did not accept the jury verdict, we
         hold that the district court did not err by giving clarifying instruc-
         tions to the jury and then directing them to continue deliberating. 6

         6 In reaching this holding, we note that we are not faced with a situation where

         the district court accepted an internally inconsistent verdict, e.g., a jury’s ver-
         dict that generally found a defendant guilty of a charge but also specifically
         found that the government had not proved an element (or elements) of the
         offense beyond a reasonable doubt. As such, we neither need to decide this
         issue nor consider whether to follow cases from our sister circuits holding that
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         30                         Opinion of the Court                        19-14969

              2. The District Court’s Decision Was Not Plainly Erroneous Under
                                the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
                Having determined that the district court’s decision did not
         run afoul of Powell, we now address whether the decision violated
         Gatlin’s rights under the Due Process and Double Jeopardy Clauses
         of the Fifth Amendment, and his right to a fair trial under the Sixth
         Amendment, by instructing the jury to continue deliberations after
         it returned the unanimous, but inconsistent, verdict of “guilty.”
         Gatlin asserts that “the jury returned a general verdict of guilt but
         unanimously found . . . that [Gatlin] did not commit an essential
         element of the oﬀense,” and that, as such, the district court should
         have entered a verdict of not guilty as to Count 1. Gatlin argues
         that the district court’s failure to do so violated the Fifth and Sixth
         Amendments. Gatlin also argues that the district court’s directions
         to the jury were “coercive” because the district court told the jury
         that the verdict was “inconsistent,” also told the jury that the court
         “had no opinion or view as to the correct verdict,” and instructed
         the jury three times what had to be done to ﬁnd Gatlin guilty, but
         only twice as to what had to be done to ﬁnd Gatlin not guilty.
                Generally, we review constitutional errors de novo. See
         Brown, 364 F.3d at 1268. But Gatlin did not raise any constitutional
         challenges below as to this issue. Accordingly, the district court did

         when such an internally inconsistent verdict is accepted (and jeopardy at-
         taches) the defendant is entitled to a judgment of acquittal. See, e.g., United
         States v. Pierce, 940 F.3d 817 (2d Cir. 2019); United States v. Randolph, 794 F.3d
         602 (6th Cir. 2015).
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         19-14969                Opinion of the Court                          31

         not have the opportunity to consider the issue, and we are now
         considering it for the ﬁrst time on appeal. “[W]here, as here, a
         party raises a constitutional challenge for the ﬁrst time on appeal,
         our review is limited to ‘plain error.’” United States v. Hughes, 840
         F.3d 1368, 1385 (11th Cir. 2016) (quoting United States v. Peters, 403
         F.3d 1263, 1270 (11th Cir. 2005)).
                  Gatlin’s constitutional argument is essentially a double jeop-
         ardy challenge under the Fifth Amendment, which provides that
         no person may “be subject for the same oﬀence to be twice put in
         jeopardy of life or limb.” U.S. Const. amend. V. The “state of jeop-
         ardy attaches when a jury is empaneled and sworn, or, in a bench
         trial, when the judge begins to receive evidence.” United States v.
         Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U.S. 564, 569 (1977). The state of jeop-
         ardy terminates once “proceedings against an accused have . . . run
         their full course,” such as after a ﬁnal verdict in the accused’s favor.
         Justs. of Bos. Mun. Ct. v. Lydon, 466 U.S. 294, 308 (1984) (quoting Price
         v. Georgia, 398 U.S. 323, 326 (1970)); accord Delgado v. Fla. Dep’t of
         Corr., 659 F.3d 1311, 1324 (11th Cir. 2011) (“[T]he protection of the
         Double Jeopardy Clause by its terms applies only if there has been
         some event, such as an acquittal, which terminates the original
         jeopardy.” (quoting Richardson v. United States, 468 U.S. 317, 325
         (1984))). A ﬁnal verdict is valid only if “it is published in open court
         with no juror dissent,” United States v. Acevedo, 141 F.3d 1421, 1424
         n.6 (11th Cir. 1998) (citing parenthetically United States v. Taylor, 507
         F.2d 166, 168 (5th Cir. 1975)), and the verdict is accepted by the
         court, see Taylor, 507 F.2d at 168 & n.2, abrogated on other grounds by
         United States v. Huntress, 956 F.2d 1309, 1319 (5th Cir. 1992).
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         32                      Opinion of the Court                  19-14969

                We ﬁnd no plain error relating to double jeopardy because
         the verdict was not ﬁnal. The district court stated that it had not
         “accepted the verdict.” Defense counsel at trial acknowledged as
         much, stating that “[t]he jury returned an inconsistent verdict as to
         Count 1” and that the “verdict was not accepted by the Court due
         to the inconsistencies in Count 1.” Since the inconsistent verdict
         was never ﬁnal, Gatlin’s initial jeopardy never terminated, and he
         therefore was not subjected to double jeopardy. See Blueford v. Ar-
         kansas, 566 U.S. 599, 608 (2012) (explaining that “ﬁnality” of the
         jury’s verdict is “necessary to amount to an acquittal” for the pur-
         poses of terminating jeopardy).
                 Neither do we ﬁnd that the district court plainly erred by
         giving a coercive instruction to the jury. To assess whether an in-
         struction to the jury “was coercive, we consider the language of
         the charge and the totality of the circumstances under which it was
         delivered.” United States v. Woodard, 531 F.3d 1352, 1364 (11th Cir.
         2008) (discussing whether an Allen charge was coercive). A charge
         to the jury to continue deliberating is impermissibly coercive if it
         “appears to give a jury no choice but to return a verdict.” United
         States v. Jones, 504 F.3d 1218, 1219 (11th Cir. 2007) (citing Jenkins v.
         United States, 380 U.S. 445, 446 (1965)).
                Here, the district court instructed the jury as follows:
                It has been brought to my attention that Count 1 is
                inconsistent. If you come back guilty as to Count 1,
                you have to ﬁnd either that (a) or (b) occurred, unan-
                imously. If you ﬁnd that (a) and (b) did not occur,
                then the verdict would be not guilty. So what I’m
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         19-14969                   Opinion of the Court                                 33

                 going to ask you to do is to continue deliberations,
                 understanding to come back with a guilty verdict, you
                 have to ﬁnd unanimously either: (a) that Mr. Gatlin
                 used means of force, threats of force, or coercion to
                 commit the crime? Or (b) that Mr. Gatlin acted in
                 reckless disregard of the fact that the minor victim
                 was under the age of 18 years or had a reasonable op-
                 portunity to observe the minor victim. If your an-
                 swers are still no to both of those, then the verdict is
                 not guilty. You can’t return a verdict of guilty unless
                 you unanimously ﬁnd and answer yes to either (a) or
                 (b). And with that, I’ll ask the clerk to give you back
                 the verdict form and ask you to continue your delib-
                 erations.
         Far from forcing the jury to reach a result, the district court asked
         them to continue deliberating. Moreover, the instructions fairly
         and impartially conveyed the jury’s path to either a guilty or not
         guilty verdict. We thus conclude that these instructions were not
         impermissibly coercive.
                In sum, our review of the record reveals no plain constitu-
         tional errors. 7

         7 Gatlin also asserts that he was deprived of his right to a fair trial by cumula-

         tive error. See United States v. Reeves, 742 F.3d 487, 505 (11th Cir. 2014) (“Under
         the cumulative-error doctrine, we will reverse a conviction where an aggrega-
         tion of non-reversible errors yields a denial of the constitutional right to a fair
         trial.”). Since we find no error, we likewise find no cumulative error.
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         34                    Opinion of the Court                 19-14969

                         C. Gatlin Was Properly Sentenced.
                We now turn to Gatlin’s sentence-related arguments. Gatlin
         makes three arguments challenging his sentence: (1) that the cus-
         tody, care, or supervisory control enhancement was improper;
         (2) that the repeat oﬀender enhancement was improper; and
         (3) that his sentence was unreasonable. These arguments are not
         persuasive.
              1. The Custody, Care, or Supervisory Control Enhancement Was
                                           Proper.
                Under U.S.S.G. § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B), a defendant’s oﬀense level
         may be enhanced by two if “the minor was . . . in the custody, care,
         or supervisory control of the defendant.” According to § 2G1.3’s
         commentary, “[s]ubsection (b)(1) is intended to have broad applica-
         tion and includes oﬀenses involving a victim less than 18 years of
         age entrusted to the defendant, whether temporarily or perma-
         nently.” U.S.S.G. § 2G1.3 cmt. n.2(A). In applying the enhance-
         ment, “the court should look to the actual relationship that existed
         between the defendant and the minor and not simply to the legal
         status of the defendant-minor relationship.” Id. (emphasis added).
         And the commentary states that “teachers, day care providers,
         baby-sitters, or other temporary caretakers are among those who
         would be subject to this enhancement.” Id.
                In analyzing a nearly-identical section in the Guidelines—
         U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1—we have explained that a court’s consideration
         of “the ‘actual relationship’ instead of just the ‘legal status’ be-
         tween the defendant and the victim . . . requires a functional
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         19-14969                Opinion of the Court                          35

         approach instead of a formalistic one.” United States v. Isaac, 987
         F.3d 980, 991 (11th Cir. 2021) (quoting U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1 cmt. n.5(A)).
         Additionally, in Isaac, this Court looked to the plain meaning of the
         operative phrase in § 2G2.1(b)(5)—“custody, care, or supervisory
         control,” which is identical to the language in § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B). See
         id. at 991. This Court explained that “the plain meaning of stating
         that a child is in a person’s care is simply to say the person is respon-
         sible for looking after the child’s wellbeing.” Id. at 992.
                Gatlin argues that the § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B) enhancement was in-
         correctly applied to him because he and E.H. did not have any
         preexisting relationship. In doing so, he cites United States v. Brooks,
         610 F.3d 1186 (9th Cir. 2010), for the proposition that a defendant’s
         role must be similar to that of a parent, relative, or legal guardian,
         and argues that he was not in a position of “parent-like authority.”
                  In Brooks, the Ninth Circuit concluded that § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B)
         “refers to a defendant’s role with respect to the minor that is com-
         parable to that of the parents, relatives, and legal guardians covered
         by” § 2G1.3(b)(1)(A) based on the term “otherwise” in
         § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B). Id. at 1200–01. The Ninth Circuit also noted that
         the Sentencing Commission’s commentary that listed “teachers,
         day care providers, baby-sitters, or other temporary caretakers” as
         examples to whom the enhancement may apply and found that
         “[t]eachers, day care providers, and baby-sitters all act in loco paren-
         tis, in a position of authority over the minor that exists apart from
         the conduct giving rise to the oﬀense.” Id. at 1201. The court,
         however, did recognize that the commentary did “not expressly
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         36                      Opinion of the Court                   19-14969

         limit application of the enhancement to defendants with similar
         authority” and instructed courts to “look to the actual relationship
         that existed between the defendant and the minor and not simply
         to the legal status of the defendant-minor relationship” in applying
         the enhancement, which has “broad application.” Id. (quoting
         § 2G1.3 cmt. n.2(A)).
                 However, in Isaac, we interpreted a sentencing enhancement
         (§ 2G2.1) with the same language as § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B). See 987 F.3d
         at 991–92. We explained that the language of the commentary was
         “broadly inclusive,” as it used terminology—i.e., “includes oﬀenses
         involving a minor entrusted to the defendant” and “among those
         who would be subject to this enhancement”—that was not exhaus-
         tive. See id. at 991. Additionally, relying on the plain meaning of
         the term “care,” we concluded that “the plain meaning of stating
         that a child is in a person’s care is simply to say the person is respon-
         sible for looking after the child’s wellbeing.” See id. at 991–92. We
         also recognized that the commentary required courts to consider
         the “actual relationship” between the victim and defendant, not
         just the “legal status,” and that there was no requirement of a long-
         term relationship between the two. See id. at 991.
                  Given our decision in Isaac, we conclude that the Ninth Cir-
         cuit’s analysis in Brooks regarding § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B) is too narrow
         and thus decline to follow its approach. Like the enhancement at
         issue in Isaac, we conclude that the operative phrase in
         § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B)—“custody, care, or supervisory control”—is plain,
         i.e., “the plain meaning of stating that a child is in a person’s care is
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         19-14969                Opinion of the Court                         37

         simply to say the person is responsible for looking after the child’s
         wellbeing.” 987 F.3d at 992. Further, the commentary to
         § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B) provides for “broad application” of the enhance-
         ment and tells us to “look to the actual relationship that existed be-
         tween the defendant and the minor.” § 2G1.3 cmt. n.2(A). We thus
         decline to adopt the more “formalistic” view held by the Ninth Cir-
         cuit, see Isaac, 987 F.3d at 991 (determining that the actual relation-
         ship between the defendant and the victim “requires a functional
         approach instead of a formalistic one”), that the application of
         § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B) is limited to relationships between the defendant
         and the victim that are only “broadly comparable to that of par-
         ents, relatives, and legal guardians,” see Brooks, 610 F.3d at 1201. In-
         deed, we note that the Fourth Circuit has concluded that a district
         court did not plainly err in applying § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B) to a case with
         similar facts. Cf. United States v. Muslim, 944 F.3d 154, 169 (4th Cir.
         2019) (ﬁnding no plain error in application of § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B)
         where (1) the minor victim moved in the defendant when she was
         under eighteen years old, (2) the minor victim relied on the defend-
         ant to drive her to school, and (3) the defendant provided for the
         victims of his prostitution ring, including the minor victim).
                Turning to the facts of this case, our review of the district
         court’s factual ﬁndings in applying a sentencing enhancement is for
         clear error. See Trujillo, 146 F.3d at 847; Muslim, 944 F.3d at 167.
         We conclude that the district court did not clearly err in its factual
         ﬁndings. Indeed, the evidence shows that Gatlin did occupy a
         guardian-like position over E.H. Gatlin was forty-one years old
         when he met seventeen-year-old E.H., who promptly told him her
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         38                     Opinion of the Court                 19-14969

         age. Gatlin knew that E.H. was unemployed, a drug addict, and
         homeless after being kicked out by her grandmother. He provided
         E.H. with shelter and food during the relevant period. Gatlin
         claimed that he was trying to “change her” for the better. And on
         at least one occasion, Gatlin introduced himself as E.H.’s father.
         While Gatlin and E.H. only had a short-term relationship,
         § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B) does not require the defendant and the victim to
         have a long-term relationship. § 2G1.3 cmt. n.2(A); see Isaac, 987
         F.3d at 991–92 (“Under the plain meaning of being in someone’s
         ‘care,’ D.J. was ‘in the care of ’ Isaac . . . . He had been providing
         D.J. and her family with the necessities of life when he picked her
         up in his car on the ﬁrst day he molested her . . . . While D.J. was
         alone with him, Isaac was the adult responsible for looking after
         her wellbeing.”).
                We thus conclude that the district court did not err in apply-
         ing the § 2G1.3(b)(1)(B) enhancement.
                     2. The Repeat-Oﬀender Enhancement Was Proper.
                U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5(b) imposes a ﬁve-level increase to a defend-
         ant’s oﬀense level if he is convicted of “a covered sex crime” and
         “engaged in a pattern of activity involving prohibited sexual con-
         duct” with a minor. The commentary explains that a “pattern of
         activity” means that the defendant engaged in the prohibited sexual
         conduct on “at least two separate occasions.” U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5 cmt.
         n.4(B)(i). And “prohibited sexual conduct” includes violations of
         18 U.S.C. § 1591. See id. § 4B1.5 cmt. n.4(A) (explaining that sexual
         conduct includes “any oﬀense described in 18 U.S.C.
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         19-14969               Opinion of the Court                       39

         § 2426(b)(1)(A)”); § 2426(b)(1)(A) (stating that a “prior sex oﬀense
         conviction” is a conviction under § 1591).
                On appeal, Gatlin’s only argument against the application of
         this enhancement is that he engaged in non-commercial sex with
         E.H., which is not prohibited by § 1591. As such, he contends that
         the district court improperly applied § 4B1.5(b).
               We disagree. The record demonstrates that Gatlin violated
         § 1591 repeatedly, e.g., when Gatlin ﬁrst met E.H., he paid her for
         sex; Gatlin transported E.H. to facilitate prostitution on numerous
         occasions; he rented motel rooms for E.H. to facilitate prostitution;
         and he coached her on pricing and sexual techniques. Based on the
         record evidence, we conclude that the district court did not err in
         applying U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5(b) here.
                    D. Gatlin’s Life Sentence Was Reasonable.
                 We evaluate the reasonableness of a sentence using a two-
         step process. First, we consider “whether the district court com-
         mitted any signiﬁcant procedural error.” United States v. Tome, 611
         F.3d 1371, 1378 (11th Cir. 2010). Second, we consider “whether the
         sentence is substantively reasonable under the totality of the cir-
         cumstances.” Id. As we stated in Tome, 611 F.3d at 1378, our review
         is informed by the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, which are:
               (1) the nature and circumstances of the oﬀense and
               the history and characteristics of the defendant;
               (2) the need for the sentence imposed—
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         40                     Opinion of the Court                   19-14969

                   (A) to reﬂect the seriousness of the oﬀense, to
                   promote respect for the law, and to provide just
                   punishment for the oﬀense;
                   (B) to aﬀord adequate deterrence to criminal
                   conduct;
                   (C) to protect the public from further crimes
                   of the defendant; and
                   (D) to provide the defendant with needed edu-
                   cational or vocational training, medical care, or
                   other correctional treatment in the most eﬀec-
                   tive manner;
               (3) the kinds of sentences available;
               (4) the kinds of sentence and the sentencing range
               ...;
               (5) any pertinent policy statement . . . ;
               (6) the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities
               . . . ; and
               (7) the need to provide restitution to any victims of
               the oﬀense.
                We “presume that a sentence imposed within a properly cal-
         culated United States Sentencing Guidelines range is a reasonable
         sentence,” Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 341 (2007), and we re-
         view the reasonableness of a sentence only for an abuse of discre-
         tion, Gall, 552 U.S. at 41. “[W]hen a judge decides simply to apply
         the Guidelines to a particular case, doing so will not necessarily re-
         quire lengthy explanation.” Rita, 551 U.S. at 356.
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         19-14969               Opinion of the Court                        41

                Gatlin argues both that the district court committed signiﬁ-
         cant procedural errors and that his sentence is substantively unrea-
         sonable. First, he argues that the district court did not address his
         mental health mitigation argument that, if he received proper men-
         tal health treatment, “a sentence of life would be unreasonable.”
         Second, he asserts that the district court did not address his central
         sentencing argument that the “use of [a] computer” sentencing en-
         hancements are unfair “given the pervasiveness of cellular commu-
         nications.”
                 We conclude that Gatlin’s arguments are without merit.
         First, the district court did not commit any procedural error as to
         Gatlin’s mental health mitigation argument. Indeed, the district
         court explicitly considered Gatlin’s mental health issues, stating
         that it understood and “considered his history with his being schiz-
         ophrenic and other types of bipolar issues.” Second, the lack of
         discussion on the fairness of computer sentencing enhancements
         does not make the sentence substantively unreasonable. The dis-
         trict court considered the PSI’s recommendation, Gatlin’s criminal
         history, his mental health issues, his likelihood to reoﬀend and the
         need to protect the public, and his prior violations of probation.
         Gatlin may disagree with how the district court weighed the fac-
         tors, but the district court did not abuse its discretion in weighing
         them. See United States v. Rosales-Bruno, 789 F.3d 1249, 1259 (11th
         Cir. 2015) (“The court exercised its authority to assign heavier
         weight to several other sentencing factors than it assigned to the
         guidelines range. Nothing requires a sentencing court to give the
         advisory guidelines range as much weight as it gives any other
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         42                     Opinion of the Court                  19-14969

         § 3553(a) factor or combination of factors.”). This district court
         provided adequate reasons for its decision.
                Accordingly, we conclude that the district court did not
         abuse its discretion in sentencing Gatlin.
               E. The Order of Restitution Does Not Violate Gatlin’s
                             Sixth Amendment Rights.
                Finally, we turn to Gatlin’s arguments regarding the order of
         restitution. Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(a)(1), the district court
         was required to order “that the defendant make restitution to the
         victim” in this case. The government bears the burden of proof to
         demonstrate “the proper amount [and] type of restitution . . . by
         the preponderance of the evidence.” Id. § 3664(e). In doing so, it
         may rely on any “evidence bearing ‘suﬃcient indicia of reliability
         to support its probable accuracy.’” United States v. Singletary, 649
         F.3d 1212, 1217 n.21 (11th Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Ber-
         nardine, 73 F.3d 1078, 1080–81 (11th Cir. 1996)). This includes the
         evidence adduced at trial. See United States v. Hairston, 888 F.2d
         1349, 1353 (11th Cir. 1989) (“[T]he record provides an adequate ba-
         sis upon which to review the district court’s restitution order.”).
         Where there are “diﬃculties in determining exactly how much”
         restitution is required, a district court does not abuse its discretion
         by “accepting a reasonable estimate.” United States v. Futrell, 209
         F.3d 1286, 1291–92 (11th Cir. 2000).
                 Following a restitution hearing where it heard from both the
         government and the defense, including from Gatlin himself, the
         district court ordered Gatlin to pay $1,700 in restitution. The
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         19-14969                   Opinion of the Court                                43

         district court ordered that amount based on the evidence that E.H.
         was employed by Gatlin and turned money over to him, and that
         Gatlin took E.H.’s personal items with him when he left her at the
         convenience store bathroom.
                On appeal, Gatlin raises three arguments regarding the res-
         titution order. 8 First, he asserts that a restitution order must be put
         to a jury under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000). Accord-
         ing to Gatlin, in Southern Union Co. v. United States, 567 U.S. 343
         (2012), the Supreme Court held that “Apprendi applies to the impo-
         sition of criminal ﬁnes.” Id. at 360. However, we explicitly rejected
         this argument in Dohrmann v. United States, 442 F.3d 1279, 1281
         (11th Cir. 2006), where we held that Apprendi does not apply to
         restitution orders because the restitution statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3663,
         does not have a prescribed statutory maximum. To the extent that
         Gatlin contends that Dohrmann was abrogated by Southern Union,
         we disagree. As the Seventh Circuit has explained, “Southern Union
         and the scope of Apprendi only come into consideration if we ﬁrst
         conclude restitution is a criminal penalty. We decline to reach such
         a conclusion.” United States v. Wolfe, 701 F.3d 1206, 1217 (7th Cir.
         2012). Moreover, Southern Union does not discuss restitution, let
         alone hold that Apprendi should apply to it. Therefore, because the

         8 Gatlin does not argue that the district court erred in awarding restitution for

         E.H.’s lost prostitution profits because they are proceeds from illegal activity,
         see generally United States v. Taylor, 62 F.4th 146 (4th Cir. 2023), and we there-
         fore do not address the issue.
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         44                      Opinion of the Court                    19-14969

         restitution order of $1,700 concerns a restitution and not a criminal
         ﬁne, Gatlin’s ﬁrst argument is unavailing.
                 Second, Gatlin asserts that the district court’s delay in hold-
         ing the restitution hearing deprived the court of its ability to order
         restitution. See 18 U.S.C. § 3664(d)(5) (“If the victim’s losses are not
         ascertainable by the date that is 10 days prior to sentencing, . . . the
         court shall set a date for the ﬁnal determination of the victim’s
         losses, not to exceed 90 days after sentencing.”). Here, too, binding
         precedent demands the opposite conclusion. As the Supreme
         Court has explained, “a sentencing court that misses the 90-day
         deadline nonetheless retains the power to order restitution” if it
         “made clear prior to the deadline’s expiration that it would.” Dolan
         v. United States, 560 U.S. 605, 608 (2010); accord United States v. Rodri-
         guez, 751 F.3d 1244, 1260 (11th Cir. 2014). And the district court
         here did so at the sentencing hearing, stating that “restitution is
         mandatory and shall be ordered.”
                Lastly, Gatlin argues that there was insuﬃcient evidence to
         support the restitution award. He raises essentially two issues with
         the evidence. First, he contends that some of the evidence used to
         estimate the total was unsworn. Second, he asserts that the esti-
         mate was not speciﬁc enough.
                We reject both of Gatlin’s arguments. First, evidence used to
         estimate a restitution total need not be sworn; it merely must
         “bear[] ‘suﬃcient indicia of reliability to support its probable accu-
         racy.’” Singletary, 649 F.3d at 1217 n.21 (quoting Bernardine, 73 F.3d
         at 1080–81); see also Hairston, 888 F.2d at 1353 (“The fact that the
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         19-14969               Opinion of the Court                         45

         [evidence] is hearsay . . . does not bar the trial judge from consid-
         ering it in forming the order of restitution.”). Second, the district
         court does not abuse its discretion when it accepts “a reasonable
         estimate” of the amount of restitution, and “the restitution
         amount may be approximated.” Futrell, 209 F.3d at 1291–92. And
         here, the record shows that Gatlin was E.H.’s pimp. Because Gatlin
         and E.H. met in mid-October and separated on November 30, we
         can infer that she worked for him for about ﬁve weeks. The testi-
         mony presented at trial established that during that time, E.H.
         charged “[$]40 for head, [$]60 for 15 minutes, [$]80 for 30 minutes,
         and [$]100 for a[n] hour” in Miami, and “[$]150 for 15 minutes,
         [$]200 for 30 minutes, and [$]300 for a[n] hour” in the Florida Keys.
         The district court was entitled to rely on this evidence in calculating
         the restitution amount–—again, an amount that may be approxi-
         mated, see id.—and we conclude that the amount the district court
         ultimately calculated, $1,700, was supported by the record. We
         thus conclude that the district court did not err in its calculation of
         the restitution amount and did not violate Gatlin’s rights.
                                IV.    CONCLUSION
                For the reasons stated, we aﬃrm Gatlin’s convictions and
         sentences as to Counts 1 and 2. We also aﬃrm the district court’s
         restitution order. But we vacate his sentence and conviction as to
         Count 3.
                AFFIRMED IN PART and REVERSED IN PART.
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         19-14969 [JORDAN, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part]          1

         JORDAN, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
               I join Judge Lagoa’s opinion for the court with the exception
         of Part III.A.2, as to which I respectfully dissent.
                                         *****
                 As to Part III.B, which I join, I emphasize that due to the
         district court’s non-acceptance of the inconsistent jury verdict on
         Count 1 we are not faced with a situation where a ﬁnal jury verdict
         contains answers to special interrogatories that preclude a general
         ﬁnding of guilt. Had the district court accepted the jury’s incon-
         sistent verdict, I do not think Mr. Gatlin’s conviction on Count 1
         could stand. See, e.g., United States v. Pierce, 940 F.3d 817, 821–23 (2d
         Cir. 2019) (“[T]he appropriate remedy for the inconsistency [within
         a count in the jury verdict] (when the jury was not given the op-
         portunity to reconsider) [i]s to set aside the guilty verdict[.]”);
         United States v. Randolph, 794 F.3d 602, 609 (6th Cir. 2015) (“Here,
         the jury’s special verdict found that the drugs ‘involved in’ the con-
         spiracy were ‘none.’ This unanimous ﬁnding negates an essential
         element of the charged drug conspiracy and is only susceptible to
         one interpretation: the government failed to prove Randolph guilty
         of the charged drug conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt.”);
         United States v. Gonzalez, 841 F.3d 339, 348 (5th Cir. 2016) (“Courts
         consistently vacate convictions when the answers to special inter-
         rogatories undermine a ﬁnding of guilt the jury made on the gen-
         eral question.”); United States v. Mitchell, 476 F.3d 539, 544 (8th Cir.
         2007) (“[D]ouble jeopardy is triggered when either . . . a jury acquits
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         2     [JORDAN, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part] 19-14969

         a defendant or . . . makes a factual ﬁnding that would be fatal to the
         government’s case.”).
                                        *****
                  My disagreement concerns Part III.A.2, which upholds Mr.
         Gatlin’s conviction for production of child pornography under 18
         U.S.C. § 2251(a). Though the issue is admittedly close, I do not be-
         lieve the evidence was suﬃcient to support a guilty verdict on this
         charge.
                The conviction, as noted in the court’s opinion, is based on
         a single “live” photo taken by Mr. Gatlin during intercourse with
         E.H. Having reviewed the single live photo, I don’t think that the
         evidence is suﬃcient to convict Mr. Gatlin of production of child
         pornography. In my view, Mr. Gatlin correctly asserts that the evi-
         dence showed only that he took a photo during sexual intercourse
         with E.H., not that he had sexual intercourse with her for the pur-
         pose of producing child pornography.
                The relevant language of § 2251(a) makes it a felony for
         “[a]ny person” to “induce[ ], entice[ ], or coerce[ ] any minor to en-
         gage in . . . any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of produc-
         ing any visual depiction of such conduct or for the purpose of
         transmitting a live visual depiction of such conduct.” Our prece-
         dent establishes that taking or producing explicit photos need not
         be the “defendant’s sole or primary purpose,” and it is “enough to
         show that it was ‘a purpose’ for doing so.” United States v. Miller,
         819 F.3d 1314, 1316 (11th Cir. 2016). But the statute’s language spec-
         iﬁes that “a defendant must engage in the sexual activity with the
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         19-14969 [JORDAN, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part]        3

         speciﬁc intent to produce a visual depiction; it is not suﬃcient
         simply to prove that the defendant purposefully took a picture.”
         United States v. Palomino-Coronado, 805 F.3d 127, 131 (4th Cir. 2015).
         I agree that there was enough evidence to establish that Mr. Gatlin
         took the photo, but that photo does not show that Mr. Gatlin and
         E.H. “posed” for the photo by “remaining still during sexual inter-
         course.” Maj. Op. at 17–18. Not all sexual activity, after all, is com-
         prised of uninterrupted and continuous physical motion.
                 The court reasons that a jury could reasonably infer from
         the pause in the middle of intercourse that, for at least some frac-
         tion of the time, Mr. Gatlin was engaged in sexual conduct with
         E.H. partly for the purpose of recording it. I’m not so sure, and my
         concern is that we are coming close to making § 2251(a) a strict
         liability statute. Generally speaking, taking a photo requires the
         person with the camera to pause for a moment, focus on the sub-
         ject, and press a button. So, the court may be saying that if the
         defendant takes a photo during sexual intercourse with a minor,
         that act will always provide enough evidence to convict the defend-
         ant of production of child pornography under § 2251(a).
               The conduct here is diﬀerent (and less substantial) than the
         conduct at issue in United States v. Lebowitz, 676 F.3d 1000, 1013
         (11th Cir. 2012), where the defendant and the minor victim dis-
         cussed videotaping a sexual encounter prior to the recording, the
         defendant brought a camera and tripod through the victim’s bed-
         room window and set up the equipment, and the sexual encounter
         took place in that bedroom only because there was no room for the
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         4     [JORDAN, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part] 19-14969

         equipment in the defendant’s car. I do not maintain that the evi-
         dence in Lebowitz is the only evidence that will suﬃce for a produc-
         tion of child pornography conviction, but I do think that this
         case—with a single live photo—is markedly diﬀerent. The facts
         here seem much closer to those in Palomino-Colorado, 805 F.3d at
         131–33, which reversed a § 2251(a) conviction based on a single cell-
         phone photograph that was subsequently deleted.
                As the Second Circuit has explained, under § 2251(a) the
         “[s]equence” of events “is critical. . . . [A defendant] c[an] only per-
         suade, induce, or entice [a minor] to take [p]hotos . . . if his persua-
         sion, inducement, or enticement came before [he] took them.”
         United States v. Broxmeyer, 616 F.3d 120, 125 (2d Cir. 2010) (emphasis
         in original). Here, there is no testimony from E.H. (or any other
         evidence) about how the photograph came to be taken, or when
         during the encounter it was taken. Nor is there evidence about
         whether she and Mr. Gatlin had discussed photographing their en-
         counter at any point before the photo was taken, whether he gave
         E.H. any instructions before or during their encounter to facilitate
         the taking of the photo, see United States v. Torres, 894 F.3d 305, 314–
         15 (D.C. Cir. 2018), or whether he had ever recorded any of their
         other sexual encounters. See also United States v. Lee, 603 F.3d 904,
         918 (11th Cir. 2010) (holding that the defendant’s description of
         “how many photographs he wanted of each girl” and “how he
         wanted the girls to pose” contributed to the reasonableness of the
         jury’s ﬁnding that he intended to use the minors for the production
         of child pornography); United States v. Morales-de Jesus, 372 F.3d 6,
         21–22 (1st Cir. 2004) (evidence was suﬃcient where the defendant
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         19-14969 [JORDAN, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part]         5

         “actively concealed from the minor the fact that he was videotap-
         ing her,” gave her “speciﬁc instructions regarding certain positions
         he wanted her to assume relative to the camera,” and “instructed
         her on what to say while the camera recorded their activities”). This
         is also not a case where the number or volume of sexually explicit
         recordings or depictions may be indicative of purpose. See, e.g.,
         United States v. Ortiz-Graulau, 526 F.3d 16, 18–19 (1st Cir. 2008) (ev-
         idence was suﬃcient where the defendant took over ﬁfty pictures
         because the “number of photographs . . . permit[ted] a strong in-
         ference that some of the conduct occurred in order to make the
         photographs”). There was, in other words, no circumstantial evi-
         dence aside from the single photo itself from which a jury could
         infer that the sexual activity with E.H. was for the “purpose” (in the
         words of the statute) of producing child pornography.
                 The government’s theory at closing argument seems to have
         been that the mere taking of the photograph established Mr. Gat-
         lin’s antecedent purpose to produce child pornography. See D.E.
         211 at 118, 122. That theory is, in my view, legally unsound. See,
         e.g., United States v. McCauley, 983 F.3d 690, 696–97 (4th Cir. 2020)
         (“Accordingly, § 2251(a) does not criminalize a spontaneous deci-
         sion to create a visual depiction in the middle of sexual activity
         without some suﬃcient pause or other evidence to demonstrate
         that the production of child pornography was at least a signiﬁcant
         purpose. Adducing ‘a purpose’ arising only at the moment the de-
         piction is created erroneously allows the fact of taking an explicit
         video of a minor to stand in for the motivation that animated the
         decision to do so. It is for this reason that while the image itself can
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         6     [JORDAN, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part] 19-14969

         be probative of intent if the prosecution makes a signiﬁcant con-
         nection, it cannot be the only evidence . . . . That would impermis-
         sibly reduce the statute to a strict liability oﬀense.”); Torres, 894 F.3d
         at 321 (Williams, J., concurring in part) (“On the government’s
         reading, any picture-snapping during an assembly of two or more
         persons (including at least one minor) that displays someone’s pu-
         bic region . . . gives the anterior ‘exhibition’ the object of producing
         child pornography merely because of what is in the image.”); Palo-
         mino-Colorado, 805 F.3d at 133 (“[T]he government appears to con-
         ﬂate the voluntary act of taking the picture with the speciﬁc intent
         required under the statute.”). Cf. United States v. Crandon, 173 F.3d
         122, 129 (3d Cir. 1999) (addressing U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(c)(1), which
         contains the phrase “for the purpose of producing a visual depic-
         tion of such conduct”: “It simply is not enough to say ‘the photo
         speaks for itself and for the defendant, and that is the end of the
         matter,’ as the government’s position would dictate, when the
         [guideline] makes speciﬁc reference to the defendant’s purpose in
         taking the photograph.”) (emphasis in original).
                                         *****
                I would vacate Mr. Gatlin’s § 2251(a) conviction and sen-
         tence due to insuﬃcient evidence.
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         19-14969 [LUCK, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part]         1

         LUCK, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
                 I join all of the majority opinion save for the one section—
         III.A.3.—vacating Jason Gatlin’s conviction for witness tampering
         under 18 U.S.C. section 1512(b)(3). And even as to that one section,
         there’s a lot in the majority opinion I agree with.
                For example, I agree that, to convict Gatlin of witness tam-
         pering under section 1512(b)(3), the government had to prove that
         he (1) knowingly used intimidation, threatened, or corruptly per-
         suaded E.H., or engaged in misleading conduct towards E.H., with
         the intent to (2) hinder, delay, or prevent the communication of in-
         formation related to the commission or possible commission of a
         federal oﬀense (3) to a law enforcement oﬃcer or judge of the
         United States. I agree that, to prove intent, Fowler v. United States
         required the government to show two things: ﬁrst, that Gatlin in-
         tended to hinder, delay, or prevent E.H. from communicating with
         law enforcement in general; and, second, that there was a reasona-
         ble likelihood E.H.’s communication would have been made to a
         federal oﬃcer. See 563 U.S. 668, 670 (2011).
                 And I agree the government oﬀered suﬃcient evidence sup-
         porting Fowler’s ﬁrst prong. Before he was arrested, Gatlin gave
         E.H. money and food—telling her it was so she would recant and
         lie to law enforcement about being traﬃcked. Then after he was
         arrested, Gatlin told E.H.—while she was living in his mother’s
         house and had “nowhere” else to go—to change her statement in a
         sworn aﬃdavit and “tell em” not to call her anymore, that she was
         not coming to court, and that she was leaving town and “not
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         2       [LUCK, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part] 19-14969

         coming back.” Gatlin also told his mother to pay E.H. a thousand
         dollars to recant her statements. Gatlin’s mother then drove E.H.
         to Gatlin’s attorney’s oﬃce to change her statement and Gatlin’s
         mother paid E.H. as E.H. was leaving town.
                Where I part ways with the majority opinion is on Fowler’s
         second prong—whether it was reasonably likely for E.H.’s commu-
         nication to be made to a federal oﬃcer. While conceding it’s a
         “close call,” the majority opinion concludes the government’s evi-
         dence was insuﬃcient because it “did not present any evidence in-
         dicating that Gatlin knew federal oﬃcers were investigating him
         nor any knowledge regarding the federal nature of the oﬀense
         when he sought E.H. to recant her statement.” And, reinforcing
         the point, the majority opinion repeats that “the government did
         not present evidence showing that, at the time of E.H.’s recanta-
         tion statements, Gatlin knew federal oﬃcers were investigating
         him nor had any knowledge regarding the federal nature of the of-
         fense for which he was charged.” I disagree with the majority’s
         conclusion for two reasons.
                 First, to the extent the majority opinion can be read as re-
         quiring the government to prove Gatlin knew federal oﬃcers were
         investigating him or the federal nature of the oﬀense, this misses
         the mark. Fowler’s second intent prong requires only a reasonable
         likelihood that a relevant communication would have been made
         to a federal oﬃcer. See id. Knowledge about the federal investiga-
         tion and the federal nature of the oﬀense may be strong evidence
         that it was reasonably likely for a communication to be made to a
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         19-14969 [LUCK, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part]         3

         federal oﬃcer. But that knowledge isn’t a necessary element of the
         witness-tampering statute. Cf. id. at 677–78 (explaining that “an in-
         tent to prevent communication with law enforcement oﬃcers gen-
         erally . . . includes an intent to prevent communications with federal
         law enforcement oﬃcers” if the reasonable likelihood standard is
         satisﬁed).
                 Second, applying the proper standard, the government’s ev-
         idence was suﬃcient to show a reasonable likelihood that E.H.’s
         communications would have been made to federal oﬃcers. Federal
         Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Alex Loﬀ, who works human
         traﬃcking cases in the Miami-Dade area “full-time,” testiﬁed that
         the FBI was involved in E.H.’s case as early as “early December”—
         days after E.H. called the police for help from the gas station. It
         was “[i]ncredibly common,” Special Agent Loﬀ said, for the FBI to
         work with state law enforcement oﬃcers on human traﬃcking in-
         vestigations and it was “routine” for the FBI to respond when a vic-
         tim is recovered by state oﬃcers. And after he conﬁrmed learning
         about E.H.’s recantation, Special Agent Loﬀ explained that, alt-
         hough it might occur in piecemeal fashion, it was typical for federal
         investigators to receive all the information from a state-related in-
         vestigation.
                 Miami-Dade Police Department Detective Kurtis Lueck, the
         local law enforcement oﬃcer assigned to E.H.’s case, also testiﬁed
         he was part of a sex-traﬃcking task force that included Special
         Agent Loﬀ’s oﬃce. Detective Lueck explained that, after a sex-traf-
         ﬁcking investigation is opened, the local task force oﬃcers “always
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         4       [LUCK, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part] 19-14969

         reach out to the FBI to see if they want to go out with us and get
         involved in the case.”
                 Given the evidence that the FBI joined the investigation days
         after E.H.’s call from the gas station, it was incredibly common for
         the FBI to be involved in traﬃcking investigations in the Miami-
         Dade area, the area’s local oﬃcers were in a joint traﬃcking task
         force with federal oﬃcers, and the local oﬃcers always reached out
         to the FBI about traﬃcking cases and typically shared their infor-
         mation, it was more than a remote, outlandish, or hypothetical pos-
         sibility that E.H.’s communications would have been made to fed-
         eral oﬃcers. Cf. United States v. Ramos-Cruz, 667 F.3d 487, 498–99
         (4th Cir. 2012) (“When, as occurred here, federal law enforcement
         authorities become involved in an investigation approximately a
         month after the relevant murder, federal authorities are speciﬁcally
         focusing on the group in question, and local authorities investigat-
         ing the underlying crime are actively cooperating with federal law
         enforcement oﬃcers, the reasonable likelihood standard is met.”).
         Federal oﬃcers were part of this case from the get-go.
                The majority opinion compares this case to United States v.
         Chaﬁn, 808 F.3d 1263 (11th Cir. 2015). There, “the government in-
         troduced no evidence showing that [the defendant]’s statements to
         the [state agent] investigating the alleged misuse of the jail com-
         missary account were reasonably likely to be communicated to fed-
         eral authorities.” Id. at 1274 (emphasis added). The only evidence,
         we said, pointed in the “opposite” direction: the state agent “told
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         19-14969 [LUCK, J., Concurring in Part, Dissenting in Part]         5

         [the defendant] that the local district attorney had initiated the in-
         vestigation.” Id.
                But here, unlike Chaﬁn, the government presented evidence
         showing that E.H.’s statements were reasonably likely to be com-
         municated to federal authorities. Unlike Chaﬁn, E.H.’s case was in-
         vestigated from the start not only by local and state oﬃcers, but by
         the FBI. Unlike Chaﬁn, the local oﬃcers were part of the federal
         task force investigating sex-traﬃcking crimes. And unlike Chaﬁn,
         the evidence showed that the local oﬃcers always reached out to
         the FBI about sex-traﬃcking investigations, and it was incredibly
         common for the FBI and local oﬃcers to work together on cases
         like E.H.’s. The stark diﬀerence in evidence between this case and
         Chaﬁn shows why the evidence was insuﬃcient there but suﬃcient
         here.
                  Because I believe suﬃcient evidence showed a reasonable
         likelihood of E.H.’s communications being made to federal oﬃc-
         ers, I respectfully dissent from the one section of the majority opin-
         ion vacating Gatlin’s witness-tampering conviction.