Court Opinion

ID: 9493753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:18:30.689144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:01.345947
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OPINION OF THE COURT
McKEE, Circuit Judge.
Andrew Galo appeals the sentence that was imposed following his conditional plea of guilty to production of material depicting the sexual exploitation of children, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), and possession of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B). He argues that these statutes are unconstitutional per se, and as applied to him. He also challenges the district court’s use of his prior state court convictions to enhance his sentence and impose a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years imprisonment. We hold that Congress validly exercised its authority under the Commerce Clause in enacting §§ 2251(a) and 2252(a)(4)(B), and that those statutes are not unconstitutional as applied to Galo. We do, however, agree that the sentencing court erred in enhancing his sentence based upon his prior state court convictions, and we will therefore remand for resentencing.
I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND.
In 1996, Galo was in a relationship with Sheila H. She had a young daughter whom we will refer to as Jessica H. Jessica H. had previously been sexually abused by one of her mother’s boyfriends. That abuse caused Children and Youth Services (“CYS”) to temporarily remove Jessica from her home. She had been placed back in her home before or during Galo’s relationship with her mother.
At some point, Galo persuaded Sheila H. to permit Jessica H., then thirteen years old, to spend a night at his apartment. Galo accomplished this by threatening to tell CYS that Sheila H. had previously permitted Jessica H. to have contact with him. This would have jeopardized Sheila’s custody of her daughter because Galo had a state criminal record, the nature of which we discuss below. Sheila knew that Jessica should not have been permitted to be in Galo’s company without supervision because of Galo’s background. Galo also threatened to have the utilities at Sheila H.’s residence turned off unless Jessica spent time with him. The utilities were registered in his name. In addition to threats and coercion, Galo also cajoled Sheila by telling her that he might one day be Jessica’s step-father, and suggesting that he and Jessica therefor e needed time to get acquainted.
On the evening of March 1, 1999 Jessica did stay with Galo. During her visit he took approximately 21 sexually explicit nude photographs of her after instructing her to pose nude and expose her genitals. Jessica knew that Galo had a temper and she was therefore apparently too afraid to resist or refuse.
Galo took the undeveloped film containing these photographs to an Eckerd Drug Store for processing. However, the photo manager there stopped processing the film and alerted police as soon as she discovered the sexually explicit nature of the photographs. Police responded and arrested Galo when he returned to pick-up the developed photographs. Initially Galo told the police that the film belonged to a friend in Ohio, but he later changed his story and admitted that he knew the child in the photographs was naked. He denied having intercourse with her and claimed that he only wanted to see if the pictures would “come out.” Police obtained a search warrant of Galo’s residence and seized 10 additional pictures of Jessica, as well as pictures of Galo’s nieces. Some of the pictures were of girls in their underwear while others were fully clothed. Police also seized a .35mm Vivitar camera that was later identified as being the camera that took the indecent photographs. *574Subsequent investigation disclosed that the indecent pictures of Jessica had been processed on Kodak paper. The photographic paper, film, and Vivitar camera had all been manufactured outside of Pennsylvania.
II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY.
On April 6, 1999, a federal grand jury charged Galo in a two count indictment. Count One charged him with production of material depicting the sexual exploitation of children, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), and Count Two charged him with possession of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B). Galo filed a motion to dismiss the indictment alleging that §§ 2251(a) and 2252(a)(4)(B) were unconstitutional. He also claimed that application of the statutes to him deprived him of equal protection of the laws.
On July 29, 1999, the district court denied Galo’s motion to dismiss the indictment and Galo immediately entered a conditional plea of guilty to both counts of the indictment. He preserved the following issues for appeal:
(a) Whether Title 18, United States Code, Section 2251(a) is a valid exercise of the authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause.
(b) Whether the evidence supporting the jurisdictional element of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2251(a) is sufficient under the Commerce Clause.
(c) Whether Title 18, United States Code, Section 2252(a)(4)(B) is a valid exercise of the authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause.
(d) Whether the evidence supporting the jurisdictional element of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2252(a)(4)(B) is sufficient under the Commerce Clause.
The court accepted Galo’s plea and thereafter requested that Galo and the government file briefs addressing whether Galo’s prior state convictions would subject him to the mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, contained in 18 U.S.C. § 2251(d). Galo argued that he was not subject to the mandatory minimum sentence because the state convictions did not relate to the sexual exploitation of children as required under § 2251(d). The district court disagreed and concluded that Galo’s prior state court convictions did subject him to the mandatory minimum. Consequently, the district court sentenced Galo to a term of imprisonment of 15 years (180 months), followed by five years of supervised release.
This appeal followed.
III. DISCUSSION.
A. Constitutional Challenge to 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(a) AND 2252(b)(4)(B).
As noted above, Galo pled guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(a) and 2252(a)(4)(B). Section 2251(a), is captioned “Sexual Exploitation of Children,” and provides in relevant part as follows:
Any person who 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, shall be punished as provided under subsection (d), if such person knows or has reason to know that such visual depiction will be transported in interstate or foreign commerce or mailed, if that visual depiction was produced using materials that have been mailed, shipped, or transported in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, or if such visual depiction has actually been transported in interstate or foreign commerce or mailed.
18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) (emphasis added). Section 2252(a)(4)(B), is captioned “Certain activities relating to material involving the sexual exploitation of minors,” and provides in relevant part:
(a) Any person who ... (4) either ... (B) knowingly possesses 1 or more books, magazines, periodicals, films, vid*575eo tapes, or other matter which contain any visual depiction that has been mailed, or has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, or which was produced using materials which have been mailed or so shipped or transported by any means including computer, if — (i) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and (ii) such visual depiction is of such conduct; shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) of this section.
18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(4)(B). After Galo was sentenced, we decided United States v. Rodia, 194 F.3d 465 (3d Cir.1999), cert. denied, 529 U.S. 1131, 120 S.Ct. 2008, 146 L.Ed.2d 958 (2000). There we held that Congress enacted § 2252(a)(4)(B) pursuant to a valid exercise of authority under the Commerce Clause. Section 2252(a)(4)(B) imposes criminal liability on anyone who possesses child pornography that has not itself traveled in interstate commerce, so long as one of the materials used to create the pornography has traveled in interstate commerce. We reasoned that Congress could have rationally concluded that intrastate possession of child pornography created a demand that substantially affected interstate commerce. Accordingly, Congress could regulate intrastate possession of child pornography under the Commerce Clause in order to effectively regulate its impact on interstate commerce. Although Rodia focused only on § 2252(a)(4)(B), the same reasoning governs our analysis of § 2251(a) because both statutes contain the same jurisdictional element.
As we explained in Rodia, “[a] jurisdictional element [or hook] ... refers to a provision in a federal statute that requires the government to establish specific facts justifying the existence of federal jurisdiction in connection with any individual application of the statute.” Rodia at 471. Here, the requirement that at least one of the materials used to produce the child pornography travel in interstate commerce provides the jurisdictional hook. Consequently, we find that Rodia forecloses Galo’s attack upon the constitutionality of §§ 2252(a) and 2252(a)(4)(B). Nonetheless, even though we are clearly bound by our holding in Rodia,1 Galo argues that Rodia was wrongly decided. He asserts that Rodia ignores the jurisdictional requirement contained in § 2254(b)(4)(B). Galo misreads Rodia.
In Rodia we concluded that the jurisdictional hook of § 2252(a)(4)(B) does not achieve the goal of limiting the reach of the statute to “activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” 194 F.3d at 468. We recognized that the “jurisdictional element — -the requirement that precursor materials like film or cameras moved in interstate commerce — is only tenuously related to the ultimate activity regulated: interstate possession of child pornography.” Id. at 473. We noted that, “[a]s a practical matter, the limiting jurisdictional factor is almost useless here, since all but the most self-sufficient child pornographers will rely on film, cameras, or chemicals that traveled in interstate commerce and will therefore fall within the sweep of the statute.” Id. Nevertheless, we held that Congress was empowered to enact the statute under the Commerce Clause because “Congress rationally could have believed that intrastate possession of pornography has substantial effects on interstate commerce.” Id. at 468.2 Galo argues that Rodia was incorrectly decided because we ignored the reality that Congress had criminalized purely intrastate, *576local activity. However, despite Galo’s argument to the contrary, we were well aware that the statute “criminaliz[ed] an activity that is not directly linked to interstate commerce.” Id. at 468. However, as we noted there, the fact that purely local activity is criminalized is not fatal to the statute.
The precise question before us is whether it was within Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause to enact 18 U.S.C. § 2254(a)(4)(B), which imposes criminal liability on individuals who possess child pornography that has not itself traveled in interstate commerce as long as one of the materials from which the pornography was created ... has so traveled.
Id. at 468. Rodia answers the inquiry in the affirmative and Galo’s attack on the constitutionality of the statute is therefore to no avail.
His assertion that the statute is unconstitutional as applied to him is also without merit as our analysis in Rodia clearly shows that Congress could properly regulate intrastate possession of child pornography produced by .materials that had traveled in interstate commerce.3 Consequently, we will affirm the judgment of conviction.
B. Sentence Enhancement Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2251(d).
Galo’s challenge to the district court’s sentencing enhancement is more troubling. 18 U.S.C. § 2251(d) provides in relevant part:
Any individual who violates ... this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not less than ten (10) years nor more than twenty (20) years, but if such person has one prior conviction under this chapter [18 U.S.C. § 2251 et seq.], ... or under the laws of any State relating to the sexual exploitation of children, such person shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not less than fifteen (15) years nor more than thirty (30) years....
Galo’s enhancement is based upon two guilty pleas he entered in state court in 1990. In January of that year Galo’s niece told New Kensington, Pennsylvania police that Galo had been sexually abusing her from her preschool years up to fifth grade. According to the niece, the abuse initially consisted of vaginal touching, but it progressed to oral sex and intercourse. The abuse stopped when the niece told her mother. However, she also told police that Galo had sexually abused her brothers. The police subsequently questioned her brothers, and they confirmed that Galo had also sexually abused them.
Galo’s older nephew, then age 18, told police that Galo had been sexually abusing him for the past six years. The abuse consisted of oral and anal sex, and touching of each other’s genitals. Galo’s younger nephew, then age 16, told the police that Galo had sexually abused him at various times from the time he was 6 to the time he reached 13. That abuse also consisted of oral sex and touching of genitalia.
On February 16,1990, Galo was charged in the Court of Common Pleas of West-moreland County, Pennsylvania, with two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, two counts of corruption of minors, two counts of endangering the welfare of children and four counts of indecent assault.
On March 16, 1991, Galo appeared before a state trial judge and pled guilty to corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children and indecent assault. Charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse were dropped pursuant to a plea agreement. The court accepted the plea and sentenced Galo to one and one-half to three years imprisonment. When Galo was finally released from custody on that sentence he began his parole. As a condition of that parole he was required to *577complete a sexual offender program and he was prohibited from residing in a home where minors were present. He was on parole when he became involved with Sheila.
The district court relied upon the transcript of Galo’s guilty plea hearing in state court, the elements of the state offenses he pled guilty to, and the relevant proof offered by the state in its prosecution of Galo, and deter mined that Galo’s prior state conviction “related to the sexual exploitation of children” for purposes of an enhancement under § 2251(d). However, in reaching that conclusion, the court necessarily focused on Galo’s conduct, as opposed to the elements of the offenses he was convicted of in state court.4
Galo now argues that the district court incorrectly concluded that he had been convicted of violating state laws “relating to the sexual exploitation of children,” as required to enhance his sentence. He insists that the district court was required to follow a “categorical approach” in deciding whether the enhancement provisions of § 2251(d) applied. Under the “categorical approach,” the sentencing court can look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense. The court’s analysis is not controlled by the conduct giving rise to the conviction. Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600-602, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990).
In Taylor, the defendant conditionally pled guilty to being a convicted felon-in-possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). That plea subjected him to the sentencing enhancement contained in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) which provides as follows:
(1) In the case of a person who violates section 922(g) of this title and has three previous convictions by any court ... for a violent felony ... such person shall be fined not more than $25,000 and imprisoned not less than fifteen years....
(2) As used in this subsection—
“(B) the term ‘violent felon/ means any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year ... that—
“(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or “(ii) is burglary [or other specified offenses] or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. -
Id. at 578, 110 S.Ct. 2143. Taylor conceded that his prior convictions for assault and robbery counted toward the enhancement because they involved the use of physical force against persons. However, he argued that the district court could not rely upon two burglary convictions in deciding if he qualified for an enhanced sen*578tence under § 924(e). He insisted that under the law of the state where he was convicted (Missouri), his convictions “did not involve ‘conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.’” Id. at 579, 110 S.Ct. 2143. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the enhancement based upon its conclusion that “the word burglary in § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) means burglary however a state chooses to define it.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
The issue before the Supreme Court was whether a sentencing court applying § 924(e) “must look only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses, or whether the court may consider other evidence concerning the defendant’s prior crimes.” 495 U.S. at 600, 110 S.Ct. 2143. After carefully examining the legislative history, and noting that the text of the statute grounded the enhancement on prior “convictions” for specified crimes, the Court held that the enhancement focused the sentencing court’s inquiry “on the elements of the statute of conviction, not [on] the facts of each defendant’s conduct.” Id. With one narrow exception not relevant to our analysis the Court concluded:
the only plausible interpretation of § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) is that, like the rest of the enhancement statute, it generally requires the trial court to look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense.
Id., at 602, 110 S.Ct. 2143. The Court also noted that the “practical difficulties and potential unfairness of a factual approach are daunting [because] [i]n all cases where the Government alleges that the defendant’s actual conduct fit the generic definition of burglary, the trial court would have to determine what that conduct was.” Id., at 601, 110 S.Ct. 2143.
Although a factual approach would be possible in some cases where the charging instrument disclosed the actual theories of the case as presented to the jury, it would often not be possible to discern the nature of a defendant’s prior conduct. Application of the enhancement in such instances would therefore result in inequitable treatment from state to state or even within a given jurisdiction based only upon the specificity of the charging instrument or the availability of the jury instructions, or trial transcript. Such difficulties are avoided where a sentencing court applying the § 924(e) enhancement looks only to the elements of the prior offense of conviction as defined by state law.
This categorical approach has not been limited to the enhancement under § 924(e). In Roussos v. Menifee, 122 F.3d 159, 162-63 (3d Cir.1997) we relied, in part, on the Taylor rationale and held that the Bureau of Prisons had erred when considering enhancement factors and not focusing on the elements of the offense of conviction in construing “convicted of a nonviolent offense” for purposes of awarding a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e)(2)(B).
The language of the relevant statute here is even clearer than the text of the statutes involved in Taylor and Roussos. As noted above, § 2251(d) applies when an individual has “one prior conviction ... under the laws of any State relating to the sexual exploitation of children.” As in Taylor, the language expressly refers to a “conviction,” not to “conduct” relating to the sexual exploitation of children. In order to uphold the enhancement here, we would have to read § 2251(d) as applying when the defendant has “previously been convicted under the laws of any state based upon conduct relating to the sexual exploitation of children.” The language of § 2251(d) does not fairly support that interpretation.
In his thoughtful dissent, Judge Garth reminds us that in United States v. Watkins, 54 F.3d 163 (3rd Cir.1995), we noted that the enhancement contained in § 924(e) does allow a sentencing court to apply that enhancement based upon a defendant’s actual conduct in certain instances. See Dissent at 586. In Watkins we stated:
when the “statutory definition of the prior offense” is broad enough to permit *579conviction based on conduct that falls outside of the scope of § 924(e)(2)(B) [here, outside the scope of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(d)], it becomes necessary to look beyond the statute of conviction. Only in such cases may the sentencing court look to the facts of the particular case in order to determine whether the trier of fact necessarily found elements that would qualify the offense as a “violent felony” under § 924(e)(2)(B).
54 F.3d at 166. However, that pronouncement referred to the Supreme Court’s discussion of situations where a state statute is so broad that it encompasses offenses that serve as predicates for enhancement under § 924(e), as well as offenses that do not. In Taylor, the Court held that the burglary enhancement contained in § 924(e) applied whenever a defendant had a prior conviction for a crime that had the same elements as “generic” burglary, no matter how the crime was labeled under state law. Taylor, 495 U.S. at 599-600, 110 S.Ct. 2143. Accordingly, the Court concluded that
a person has been convicted of burglary for purposes of a § 924(e) enhancement if he is convicted of any crime, regardless of its exact definition or label, having the basic elements of unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining in, a building or structure, with intent to commit a crime.
Id. at 599, 110 S.Ct. 2143. When a given state statute defined burglary more narrowly than generic burglary (such as not requiring the intent to commit a felony or a violent crime following entry) there was clearly no problem as the prior conviction must, by definition, include the elements of generic burglary. However, some states define burglary to include unprivileged entry of a vehicle. In such cases the prior conviction would not necessarily satisfy the elements of generic burglary. However, in such a case, if the defendant had actually been convicted of entering a building, he/she would have committed a generic burglary even though the statute’s definition included conduct that could not serve as an enhancement under § 924(e). The Court stated:
A few States’ burglary statutes, ... define burglary more broadly, e.g., by eliminating the requirement that the entry be unlawful, or by including places, such as automobiles and vending machines, other than buildings.... Also, there may be offenses under some States’ laws that, while not called “burglary,” correspond in substantial part to generic burglary.... This question requires us to address a more general issue — whether the sentencing court in applying § 924(e) must look only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses, or whether the court may consider other evidence concerning the defendant’s prior crimes. The Courts of Appeals uniformly have held that § 924(e) mandates a formal categorical approach, looking only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses, and not to the particular facts underlying those convictions. We find the reasoning of these cases persuasive.
Id. at 600, 110 S.Ct. 2143 (citations omitted).
It was in this context that we made our pronouncement in Watkins.
Watkins argued that the prosecution’s reliance upon documentary evidence to establish that his prior state convictions qualified as enhancements under § 924(e) failed to meet the government’s burden of proof at sentencing. We rejected that argument because the uncontested facts in the presentence report established that Watkins’ prior convictions were predicate offenses under § 924(e). We stated:
Here, the information provided in the presentence report enabled the district court to ascertain with certainty the statutes of conviction and the statutes of conviction encompass only conduct that falls within the scope of § 924(e)(2)(B)© and (ü).... Watkins is forced to argue for a per se rule that certified copies of the judgments of conviction are required in every case before a sentencing court *580may determine that the defendant’s pri- or convictions are for “violent felonies” within the meaning of § 924(e)(2)(B). We find no persuasive justification for such an inflexible rule and decline to adopt it.
Watkins, 54 F.3d at 167-68 (emphasis added).
However, our discussion in Watkins can not be divorced from the focus of the Supreme Court’s inquiry in Taylor. There, the Court had to discern what Congress intended when it amended the applicable statute in 1986. When § 924(e) was originally enacted in 1984 it included burglary as a predicate offense for enhancing a sentence of one convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (a felon in possession of a firearm). However, “[bjurglary was defined in the statute itself as ‘any felony consisting of entering or remaining surreptitiously within a building that is property of another with intent to engage in conduct constituting a Federal or State offense.’ ” Taylor, 495 U.S. at 581, 110 S.Ct. 2143. The current version of § 924(e) was enacted into law when Congress passed the Career Criminals Amendment Act of 1986. Id. at 577, 110 S.Ct. 2143. Those amendments made three changes in the original 1984 enactment. “This amendment ... expanded the predicate offenses triggering the sentence enhancement from “robbery or burglary” to “a violent felony or a serious drug offense”; it defined the term “violent felony” to include “burglary”; and it deleted the pre-existing definition of burglary.” Id. at 582, 110 S.Ct. 2143. Thus, in Taylor, the Court had to examine the legislative history of the amendments to determine if Congress intended a substantive change in what constituted a predicate offense under § 924(e). The Court concluded that the omission did not mean that Congress intended to change the definition of burglary.
The legislative history as a whole suggests that the deletion of the 1984 definition of burglary may have been an inadvertent casualty of a complex drafting process. In any event, there is nothing in the history to show that Congress intended in 1986 to replace the 1984 “generic” definition of burglary with something entirely different. Although the omission of a pre-existing definition of a term often indicates Congress’ intent to reject that definition, we draw no such inference here.
Id. at 589-90, 110 S.Ct. 2143 (citations omitted).
Having established that a burglary, as originally defined, remained a predicate offense, the Court held that sentencing courts must adopt the “categorical approach” in determining if a state conviction for burglary constituted a “burglary” for purposes of § 924(e). As noted above, when a given state statute includes conduct as burglary that would not constitute “generic burglary,” the sentencing court can only accomplish the required inquiry if it first determines if the prior conviction was tantamount to “generic burglary” as originally defined in § 924(e). Thus, in Watkins, we acknowledged that the sentencing court must “look beyond the statute of conviction” when a defendant has a prior conviction under a statute that labels conduct as a burglary that would traditionally not be defined as burglary (such as illegally entering of a vehicle with the intent to commit a crime). In that situation, the prior “burglary” conviction can only serve as a predicate offense under § 924(e) if the defendant’s conduct constituted a “generic burglary.” Otherwise, there was no conviction for “burglary” under § 924(e). Accordingly, our decision in Watkins does not allow a sentencing court to impose an enhancement under § 2251(d) based on conduct that did not result in a conviction for a crime relating to sexual exploitation of children, and the dissent’s reliance upon our language in Watkins is misplaced.
We are similarly unpersuaded by the dissent’s reliance upon United States v. Sweeten, 933 F.2d 765, 769 (9th Cir.1991), and United States v. Barney, 955 F.2d 635 (10th Cir.1992). See dissent at 585-86. In Sweeten, the district court refused to count *581a prior conviction for “burglary of a habitation” in Texas as a predicate offense under § 924(e) because Texas defined “habitation” to include vehicles. The sentencing court concluded that it was therefor e not a conviction for “ ‘burglary’ in a generic sense” under Taylor. Sweeten, 933 F.2d at 767. The government appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed because the statute in question defined “habitation” to include “vehicles.” Accordingly, the statute was limited to such vehicles as “trailers, campers, and mobile homes-whose primary purpose is to serve as a dwelling and not as a mode of transportation.” Id. at 770. Therefore, the defendant’s conviction for burglary of a habitation was consistent with “generic burglary,” and the conviction constituted a predicate offense under § 924(e). In reaching this conclusion the court relied only upon the elements of the offense and did not allow an inquiry into the conduct that violated the Texas statute. Thus, contrary to the inference raised in Judge Garth’s dissent, the court stated: “we agree that it would have been error for the district court to inquire into the facts underlying Sweeten’s Texas conviction.” Id. at 769.
Similarly, in Barney, the defendant had been convicted under a Wyoming statute that defined burglary to include unauthorized entry into “a building, occupied structure or vehicle,” with the intent of committing a crime. 955 F.2d at 638.5 The court of appeals upheld the sentencing court’s enhancement of the defendant’s sentence because the transcript of the guilty plea colloquy from the prior burglaries established that he had illegally entered a building, not a vehicle. Therefore, his prior burglary convictions satisfied the elements of “generic burglary” under § 924(e). Again, however, the court stated the limits of the inquiry. The court stated:
In determining whether a person has been convicted of a crime which may be counted toward enhancement under Taylor, a court must employ a “categorical approach,” rather than inquire into underlying facts. This requires a comparison of the elements of the relevant state statute with the basic elements of burglary identified in the Taylor decision.
955 F.2d at 638 (citations omitted). The court’s holding was based upon the fact that “Taylor allows ‘the sentencing court to go beyond the mere fact of conviction in a narrow range of cases where a jury was actually required to find all the elements of generic burglary.’” Id. at 639 (quoting Taylor, 110 S.Ct. at 2160).
Our situation is quite different. As noted above, the statute that governs Galo’s enhancement requires a “prior conviction of ... laws ... relating to the sexual exploitation of children.” Therefore the enhancement is governed by whether the law the defendant previously violated relates to' “sexual exploitation of children.” Section 2251(d) does not require a sentencing court to deter mine if the prior conviction satisfies the generic elements of a crime as does § 924(e). Rather, the sentencing court need only determine if the statute (not the conduct) the defendant was previously convicted of relates to the sexual exploitation of children. Moreover, our conclusion is consistent with the practical considerations that guided the Court’s analysis in Taylor. As the Court noted there, “the practical difficulties and potential unfairness of a factual approach are daunting.” 495 U.S. at 601, 110 S.Ct. 2143. We have previously cautioned that “[a] case-by-case, fact specific approach [to applying an enhancement statute] ... could force sentencing courts to hold mini-trials, hear evidence and witnesses and otherwise *582engage in a detailed examination of the specific facts involved in the prior offense,” all of which “would be avoided with a categorical approach [that focuses on the elements of the prior offense].” United States v. Preston, 910 F.2d 81, 85 n. 3 (3d Cir.1990).
Section § 2251(d) incorporates the categorical approach because it focuses the sentencing court’s attention on the statutory definition of a prior conviction. It is the elements of a given statute, not the conduct that violates it that determines if the statute relates to sexual exploitation of children.
We conclude, therefore, that the district court erred when it considered Galo’s prior conduct in determining whether he was subject to the § 2251(d) enhancement. The court should have focused only on the statutory definitions of those prior convictions.
Accordingly, we must examine the statutory definitions of the crimes Galo was previously convicted of and determine whether they are state “laws ... relating to the sexual exploitation of children.”
As recited earlier, Galo’s state convictions were for two counts each of: (1) Corruption of Minors in violation of 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6301; (2) Endangering the Welfare of a Child in violation of 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 4304; and (3) Indecent Assault in violation of 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 3126(a)(1) and (a)(2).
Corruption of Minors is defined as follows:
Whoever, being of the age of 18 years and upwards, by any act corrupts or tends to corrupt the morals of any minor less than 18 years of age, or who aids, abets, entices or encourages any such minor in the commission of any crime, or who knowingly assists or encourages such minor in violating his or her parole or any order of court, commits a misdemeanor of the first degree.
18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6301 (emphasis added). It is readily apparent that although the statute can include conduct relating to the sexual exploitation of children, it pertains with equal force to conduct such as gambling, underage drinking or drug use. The statute is aimed at conduct of any nature that tends to corrupt children. It is broad enough to include allowing a minor to view an “R” rated video.
In deciding what conduct can be said to corrupt the morals of a minor, the common sense of the community, as well as the sense of decency, propriety and the morality which most people entertain is sufficient to apply the statute to each particular case, and to individuate what particular conduct is rendered criminal by it.
Commonwealth v. Decker, 698 A.2d 99, 101 (Pa.Super.1997) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Commonwealth v. Tau Kappa Epsilon, 530 Pa. 416, 609 A.2d 791 (1992) (fraternities prosecuted for corrupting the morals of minors based upon underage drinking).
Endangering the Welfare of a Child is defined as follows:
A parent, guardian, or other person supervising the welfare of a child under 18 years of age commits an offense if he knowingly endangers the welfare of the child by violating a duty of care, protection or support.
18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 4304. The statute clearly relates to a breach of the duty of care rather than sexual abuse or exploitation. It includes such conduct as parents refusing to obtain medically necessary treatment for a child based upon religious beliefs. See Commonwealth v. Barnhart, 345 Pa.Super. 10, 497 A.2d 616, 623 (1985) (parent prosecuted for refusing to obtain medical treatment for child defended charges of endangering welfare of child, and involuntary manslaughter by explaining “if I would go to a doctor I would be turning my back on my faith.”). It also criminalizes such negligent parental conduct as leaving a plastic bag too close to a sleeping infant who subsequently suffocates. Commonwealth v. Fewell, 439 *583Pa.Super. 541, 654 A.2d 1109 (1995), and intentional physical assaultive behavior of a nonsexual nature. Commonwealth v. Vining, 744 A.2d 310 (Pa.Super.2000) (adult caregiver prosecuted for burns and beatings inflicted on toddler left in her care).
Indecent assault is a much closer call, because it obviously relates to the sexual nature of an offender’s conduct. However, it criminalizes, and relates to, nonconsen-sual indecent touching regardless of the victim’s age. Pennsylvania law establishes that this offense is committed when
[a] person who has indecent contact6 with the complainant or causes the complainant to have indecent contact with the person is guilty of indecent assault if: (1) the person does so without the complainant’s consent; (2) the person does so by forcible compulsion;....
18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 3126(a)(1) and (a)(2). Galo’s conduct would have constituted a violation of this statute regardless of the age of his victims. Although a minor could be the victim of this, or either of Galo’s other two state offenses, none of the statutory definitions of those three crimes establish a conviction under “laws relating to the sexual exploitation of children.” 7
The government argues that applying the categorical approach would produce an “absurd result” because “the enhanced penalty provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(d) would only apply to defendants convicted in states with statutes that are specifically titled ‘sexual exploitation of children,’ or that use these terms in their statutory definitions.” Government’s Br. at 31. We disagree. The § 2251(d) enhancement would apply if a defendant had a prior state conviction for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse as defined under the law of Pennsylvania. That offense imposes criminal liability for engaging “in deviate sexual intercourse8 with a complainant: ... who is less than 13 years of age-” 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 3123(a)(6). The definition does not contain the term “sexual exploitation of children.” Nevertheless, a prior conviction for this category of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse would subject a defendant to the § 2251(d) enhancement because the conviction would be for a crime relating to the sexual exploitation of children. Similarly, a prior conviction for statutory rape would establish a conviction “under the laws of any State relating to the sexual exploitation of children” and subject a defendant to the § 2251(d) enhancement.9 Congress intended to condition enhancement under § 2251(d) on precisely this kind of prior conviction rather than on generic convictions that relate to sexual exploitation of minors only because of the specific conduct of the accused. As the Supreme Court noted in Taylor, only in this way can the enhancement be applied in a manner that is both uniform and practical.
In sum, because Galo has not previously been convicted for violating a law relating *584to the sexual exploitation of children, the district court improperly applied the § 2251(d) enhancement to Galo’s sentence.
IV.
For all of the above reasons, we reject Galo’s constitutional challenge to §§ 2251(a) and 2242(a)(4)(B). However, because none of Galo’s prior state convictions were convictions “under the laws of any State relating to the sexual exploitation of children,” he is not subject to the § 2251(d) enhancement. Therefore, we will vacate Galo’s sentence and remand for resentencing.10

. See United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Internal Operating Procedure 9.1.

. There are three broad categories of activity that Congress can regulate under the Commerce Clause: (1) the channels of interstate commerce; (2) the instrumentalities of interstate commerce; and (3) those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce. United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 559, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995). In Rodia, we found that categories (1) and (2) were not pertinent to our analysis and turned our attention to category (3), which was at the "heart of the matter.” 194 F.3d at 473-474.

. As noted above, the camera and film that Galo used both traveled in interstate commerce.

. As calculated by the U.S. Probation Office, Galo’s total offense level was 28 and his criminal history category was II, yielding a guideline range for imprisonment of 87 months (7.25 years) to 108 months (9 years). Presen-tence Report ("PSR”) at ¶¶ 29, 32, 64. However, the statutorily required minimum sentence for violating § 2251(a) is 120 months (10 years) for individuals who have never been convicted of any of the federal crimes specified in § 2251(d) or convicted of an offense relating to the sexual exploitation of children under the law of any state. 18 U.S.C. § 2251(d). The statutorily required minimum sentence for violating § 2251(a) is 180 months (15 years) for individuals who have one prior conviction for any of the federal crimes specified in § 2251(d) or one prior conviction for an offense relating to the sexual exploitation of children under the law of any state. Id. Pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5Gl.l(b), "[w]here a statutorily required minimum sentence is greater than the maximum of the applicable guideline range, the statutorily required minimum sentence shall be the guideline sentence.”
Section 2251(d) further provides that if a defendant has 2 or more convictions "under this chapter [18 U.S.C. § 2251 et seq.~\ or chapter 109A, or chapter 117, or under the laws of any State relating to the sexual exploitation of children, such person shall be ... imprisoned not less than 30 years nor more than life.” However, in the district court the parties agreed that although Galo pled guilty to multiple offenses, those prior offenses would amount to only one prior conviction for purposes of sentence enhancement under § 2251(d), because his pleas were entered simultaneously. App. at 149-151.

. The case actually involved two defendants. We limit our discussion to the court's analysis of Trombley’s prior conviction. The court did not allow one of Barney’s prior convictions to serve as a predicate offense because there was no indication from the guilty plea colloquy or indictment from the prior conviction that Barney had the intent to commit a crime when he entered the “burglarized” structures. The structures were open to the public. 955 F.2d at 640.

. "Indecent contact” is defined in 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 3101 as "[a]ny touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of the person for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire in either person.”

. The dissent’s contention that "[a]ll three of the Pennsylvania statutes under which Galo was previously convicted are broad enough to include 'sexual exploitation of children,’ depending on the underlying facts, ...”, see dissent at 586, is really little more than an assertion that Galo was previously convicted of conduct relating to the sexual exploitation of children. This is not what the statute requires.

. "Deviate sexual intercourse,” under Pennsylvania statutory law, is defined as, inter alia, "[sjexual intercourse per os or per anus between human beings.” 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 3101. "Sexual intercourse [i]n addition to its ordinary meaning, includes intercourse per os or per anus, with some penetration however slight; emission is not required.” Id.

. The Pennsylvania Crimes Code, in a subsection of the rape statute, imposes criminal liability on any individual who "engages in sexual intercourse with a complaint ... [w]ho is less than 13 years of age.” 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 3121(a)(6).

. Although we hold that the specific enhancement in § 2251(d) does not apply, we do not suggest that the sentencing court ought to ignore that conduct in calculating an appropriate sentence under the Sentencing Guidelines. His prior conduct is clearly relevant to determining his sentence even though it is not be a predicate offense under § 2251(d).