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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE 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.” J/d. 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, 11 DOJ-OGR-00003685

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Filename DOJ-OGR-00003685.jpg
File Size 722.2 KB
OCR Confidence 94.4%
Has Readable Text Yes
Text Length 2,120 characters
Indexed 2026-02-03 16:39:32.998630