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63a transported them for that purpose. Instead, Maxwell contends that charged offenses do not qualify as offenses involving the sexual abuse of minors because sexual abuse is not an essential ingredient of each statutory offense. See Bridges v. United States, 346 US. 209, 221 (1953). In Maxwell’s view, for example, it is possible to transport a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and not follow through with the planned sexual abuse, and so sexual abuse is not an essential ingredient of the offense. Maxwell makes the same argument for the enticement and related conspiracy charges. This approach is analogous to the “categorical approach” employed by courts to evaluate prior con- victions for immigration and sentencing purposes. See Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 602 (1990). Generally speaking, the “categorical approach” requires that courts “look only to the statutory definitions—i.e., the elements” of the relevant offense to determine if the provision applies “and not to the particular facts underlying those convictions.” Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254, 261 (2013) Gnternal quotation marks omitted). Whether a statute requires a categori- cal or case-specific approach is a question of statutory interpretation. To determine whether Congress used the word “offense” in a statute to refer to an offense in the abstract or to the facts of each individual case, the Court must examine the statute’s “text, context, and history.” United States v. Davis, 1389 S. Ct. 2819, 2327 (2019). Though it has not authoritatively settled the ques- tion, the Second Circuit has strongly suggested that Maxwell’s approach is the wrong one. In Weingarten v. United States, 865 F.3d 48, 58-60 (2d Cir. 2017), the Second Circuit discussed at length how the text, DOJ-OGR-00000126

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Filename DOJ-OGR-00000126.tif
File Size 42.9 KB
OCR Confidence 94.9%
Has Readable Text Yes
Text Length 1,816 characters
Indexed 2026-02-03 15:58:06.278487