US v. Skinner: Skinner is a 24-year-old New Zealand resident who, for about half a year, had a relationship over vide with a 14-year-old girl in Virginia, RD. That relationship included sexual talk, exchanging pictures with each other, and eventually “they began having online sex during live video calls using their computers.” Skinner captured photos and videos from those sessions. RD eventually cut off the relationship, after which Skinner came to Virginia and assaulted RD’s mother trying to get in her house (mom shot him in the neck). After his arrest, police in New Zealand seized hi laptop and discovered videos and photos containing child pornography. After a motion to dismiss was denied, Skinner entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of producing child pornography. He was sentenced 252 months in prison, a slight downward variance.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed Skinner’s conviction and sentence. As to the conviction, the court concluded that the district court had correctly denied Skinner’s motion to dismiss due to his conduct occurring entirely in New Zealand (federally prosecuted conduct, anyway). Holding that the production statute does not apply extraterritorially, the court moved on to determine whether “this case involves a permissible domestic application” of the statute. The court held that it did because all of the RD’s conduct had occurred in Virginia. That is because the statute involved not just sexual conduct but conduct that was produced or transmitted and, in both instances, that occurred in Virginia. It did not matter that the count to which Skinner pleaded guilty involved a particular video found on his laptop in New Zealand because “RD’s actions in Virginia” were “essential to the offense charged.” As to sentencing, the court affirmed the application of a two-level enhancement for “the commission of . . . sexual conduct,” holding that touching one’s self (which both Skinner and RD did) was sufficient to trigger the enhancement.
No comments:
Post a Comment