United States v. Reinhart

The Ninth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence after he was convicted of two counts of possession of child pornography. The panel held that neither of defendant's prior California convictions constitute offenses "relating to" child pornography under 18 U.S.C. 2252(b)(2), which imposes a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence. The panel held that because the terms "child pornography" and "sexually explicit conduct," are explicitly defined in chapter 110, the statutory text favored the narrower reading of "related to." Therefore, the panel did not depart from the usual, elements-based, categorical approach to determine whether defendant's prior state statutes of conviction trigger the federal mandatory minimum provision in 2252(b)(2) for individuals with prior offenses "relating to" child pornography. Under the categorical approach, the panel held that both California Penal Code 311.11 and 311.3 are overbroad compared to the federal statute and indivisible. View "United States v. Reinhart" on Justia Law