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Case 22-1426, Document “Tatas | 3475900, Page152 of 208
| A148 |
Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 207 Filed 04/16/21 Page 11 of 34
To the extent that the categorical approach is ever appropriate in other contexts, it is
inappropriate here.
The Court begins with the statute’s text. Statutes that call for application of the
categorical approach typically deal with the elements of an offense in a prior criminal conviction.
Id. at 59. “The language of § 3283, by contrast, reaches beyond the offense and its legal
elements to the conduct ‘involv[ed]’ in the offense. That linguistic expansion indicates Congress
intended courts to look beyond the bare legal charges in deciding whether § 3283 applied.” Jd. at
59-60 (alteration in original) (quoting § 3283). Maxwell cites one case holding otherwise, but
that case involved a venue statute presenting significantly different concerns. See United States
v. Morgan, 393 F.3d 192, 200 (D.C. Cir. 2004). The Supreme Court has likewise held that a
statute which uses the language “an offense that... involves fraud or deceit in which the loss to
the victim or victims exceeds $10,000” is “consistent with a circumstance-specific approach.”
Nijhawan v. Holder, 557 U.S. 29, 32, 38 (2009) (emphasis added). Thus, the word “involves”
generally means that courts should look to the circumstances of an offense as committed in each
case. This reading accords with a robust legislative history indicating that Congress intended to
apply § 3283 to a wide range of crimes against children. See Weingarten, 865 F.3d at 60;
Schneider, 801 F.3d at 196.
The purposes underlying the categorical approach do not apply here either. For statutes
dealing with prior convictions, “[t]he categorical approach serves ‘practical’ purposes: It
promotes judicial and administrative efficiency by precluding the relitigation of past convictions
in minitrials conducted long after the fact.” Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184, 200-01 (2013).
In the context of § 3283, there is no prior conviction to assess, and the jury will determine in the
first instance whether “the defendant engaged in the applicable abusive conduct.” Weingarten,
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Document Details
| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00020770.jpg |
| File Size | 652.7 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.4% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 2,183 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 20:03:15.224351 |