{"id":3145,"date":"2009-01-11T09:36:29","date_gmt":"2009-01-11T14:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=3145"},"modified":"2009-01-11T09:37:14","modified_gmt":"2009-01-11T14:37:14","slug":"seventh-circuit-week-in-review-abusive-sexual-conduct-involving-a-minor-and-a-drivers-license-revocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/01\/seventh-circuit-week-in-review-abusive-sexual-conduct-involving-a-minor-and-a-drivers-license-revocation\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventh Circuit Week in Review: “Abusive Sexual Conduct Involving a Minor” and a Driver’s License Revocation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Seventh Circuit had two new opinions in criminal cases this past week.\u00a0 In the first,\u00a0United States v. Osborne <\/em><\/a>(No. 08-1176), the court considered the scope of 18 U.S.C. \u00a72252(b)(1), which imposes a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence on certain child pornography defendants who have a prior conviction “relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor.”\u00a0 Osborne, convicted of a qualifying pornography offense in federal court, had a prior conviction in Indiana state court for “fondling or touching” a person age fourteen or fifteen “with intent to arouse or . . . satisfy sexual desires.”\u00a0 Thus, Osborne plainly had a prior conviction for sexual conduct involving a minor, but was it “abusive”?\u00a0 The district court thought so, but the Seventh Circuit (per Chief Judge Easterbrook) rejected a broad\u00a0interpretation of “abusive”\u00a0that would result in all sexual conduct with a minor\u00a0qualifying\u00a0— such an approach would essentially write the word “abusive” out of the statute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Section 2252 does not define “abusive,” but other federal statutes define “abuse” for other purposes.\u00a0 The court\u00a0reasoned that such other statutes should be consulted to determine whether a prior state conviction counts as “abusive sexual conduct.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Based on its review of other statutes, the court indicated that mere sexual contact (as opposed to a sexual act)\u00a0with a fourteen- or fifteen-year old would not qualify as abusive, at least without an age difference of at least four years.\u00a0 (Cases of force, fraud, or intrafamilial sexual contact might be treated differently.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Indiana statute that defined Osborne’s prior offense was broad enough to include nonqualifying sexual\u00a0touching between, say,\u00a0a high school sophomore and a senior, but also included acts that would plainly count as “abusive.”\u00a0\u00a0In other words,\u00a0examining the formal elements of the offense itself could not answer the question of whether Osborne’s prior offense\u00a0constituted “abuse.”\u00a0 The\u00a0Seventh Circuit\u00a0thus remanded for the district court to\u00a0consider the charging documents and guilty-plea colloquy in the earlier case to determine whether Osborne’s offense should count as “abusive.”<\/p>\n

In the second (and much shorter and more straightforward) new opinion, United States v. Williams <\/a><\/em>(No. 07-2841), the court (per Judge Sykes) remanded a drunk-driving case for resentencing where the district court had imposed an overly broad order revoking the defendant’s driver’s license.\u00a0 It is, of course, unusual to see a drunk-driving case in federal court, but the defendant in this case (Williams) was driving on a military installation.\u00a0 Offenses\u00a0committed\u00a0in such special enclaves of federal jurisdiction can indeed be prosecuted in federal court, even though they are normally only prosecuted in state court.\u00a0\u00a0In any event, Williams\u00a0was not only\u00a0sentenced to prison for eighteen months, but also\u00a0had his driving privileges revoked for three years.\u00a0 However, under 18 U.S.C. \u00a713(b), the sentencing judge only had the authority to revoke driving privileges\u00a0in the\u00a0“special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the the United States” (i.e., in federal enclaves like militatary installations).\u00a0 Because the sentencing judge’s revocation order\u00a0\u00a0was not so limited, the defendant was entitled to a resentencing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Seventh Circuit had two new opinions in criminal cases this past week.\u00a0 In the first,\u00a0United States v. Osborne (No. 08-1176), the court considered the scope of 18 U.S.C. \u00a72252(b)(1), which imposes a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence on certain child pornography defendants who have a prior conviction “relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,28,74,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-criminal-law-process","category-federal-sentencing","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}