US v. Davis, No. 09-3626

Sexual Exploitation Conviction Affirmed

In US v. Davis, No. 09-3626, the court affirmed defendant's conviction for sexual exploitation of a minor is affirmed where the knowledge of interstate transmission of a visual depiction of a minor, induced to engage in explicit sexual conduct, under 18 U.S.C. section 2251(a), need not be contemporaneous with the production of the visual depiction.

As the court wrote:  "The principal issue on this criminal appeal is a narrow but unsettled issue concerning the temporal aspect of the knowledge requirement of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), which punishes inducing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual depiction of such conduct. The precise issue is whether the required knowledge (or reason to have such knowledge) that the visual depiction will be transmitted in interstate commerce or mailed must exist at the time that the visual depiction is produced or may be acquired thereafter."

Related Resources

• Read the Second Circuit's Decision in US v. Davis, No. 09-3626