US v. Helton:
In 2012 Helton pleaded guilty in South Carolina to voyeurism, which required
him to register as a sex offender in that state. He later moved to Virginia and
West Virginia, successfully updating his registration along the way. However,
he eventually moved back to Virginia without updating his registration
information in West Virginia. As a result, he was charged with violating SORNA.
He unsuccessfully moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that his voyeurism
conviction, since it required no physical contact with another person, did not
meet the SORNA definition of “sex offense.”
A divided Fourth Circuit affirmed his
conviction. At issue was whether the SORNA definition of sex offense, which
requires either a “sexual act” or “sexual contact with another” included South
Carolina’s offense of voyeurism, which requires viewing another person in a
place they would have a reasonable expectation of privacy “for the purpose of
arousing or gratifying sexual desire of any person.” Applying the categorical
approach, the court concluded that it did. Noting that the term “sexual act”
(everyone agreed the offense didn’t involve sexual contact) is not defined in
SORNA, the court turned to the plain meaning of the term, rather than import a
specific definition from another federal sex offense definition. The plain
meaning, which was consistent with the Attorney General’s SORNA regulations,
did not require physical contact, so long as there was an “act” completed with
the proper state of mind. Since voyeurism required the act and a
sexually-related mens rea, it fit
that meaning.
Judge Floyd dissented. Although he
agreed with the majority as to the proper means of analysis, he argued that
when turning to the plain meaning “the read ‘sexual’ as supplying the
motivation for the act, as opposed to modifying the nature of the act itself.”
As a result, he argued, the definition is overly broad and turns not on the
nature of the act but of the state of mind.
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