United States v. Ralph Jason Miller

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[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 15-13555
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 4:14-cr-00045-RH-CAS-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
RALPH JASON MILLER,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
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(April 27, 2016)
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Ralph Jason Miller engaged in an ongoing sexual relationship with a minor.
He took explicit photographs of her on several occasions, and he asked her to send
him explicit photographs of herself. That led to his being charged with, and a jury
finding him guilty of, three counts of producing child pornography, in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), and of one count of committing those crimes while under
obligation to register as a sex offender, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2260A. The
district court sentenced him to 420 months in prison. Miller appeals his conviction
and sentence on the three counts of producing child pornography.
I.
Miller contends that the district court erred by refusing to give one of his
proposed jury instructions and by giving an instruction that misstated the law
instead. He asked the district court to instruct the jury that the government had to
prove that producing child pornography was “one of [his] dominant motives” for
causing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct. And he objected to the
court’s instruction, which said that the government had to prove that making child
pornography was “a purpose” for doing so. Miller argues on appeal that the
district court should have given the pattern jury instruction, which provides that the
government must prove that creating a visual depiction was “the purpose” for the
defendant’s actions. See Eleventh Circuit Pattern Jury Instructions (Criminal
Cases) 82 (2010) (emphasis added). According to Miller, the court’s use of the
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indefinite article reduced the government’s burden of proof and limited his ability
to present an effective defense.
A district court “enjoys broad discretion to formulate jury instructions
provided those instructions are correct statements of the law.” United States v.
Lebowitz, 676 F.3d 1000, 1014 (11th Cir. 2012). We will reverse the rejection of a
party’s proposed instruction “only if (1) the requested instruction was substantively
correct, (2) the court’s charge to the jury did not cover the gist of the instruction,
and (3) the failure to give the instruction substantially impaired the defendant’s
ability to present an effective defense.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). And we
defer to the district court “on questions of phrasing,” United States v. Prather, 205
F.3d 1265, 1270 (11th Cir. 2000) (quotation marks omitted), reversing “only if we
are left with a substantial and eradicable doubt as to whether the jury was properly
guided in its deliberations,” United States v. Browne, 505 F.3d 1229, 1276 (11th
Cir. 2007) (quotation marks omitted).
We have no such doubts here. The district court’s instruction was a correct
statement of the law: “[W]e have held that dual purposes are sufficient for a
conviction” under § 2251(a), and that “we need not concern ourselves with
whether the illegal purpose was dominant over other purposes.” Lebowitz, 676
F.3d at 1014–15 (quotation marks omitted). And that instruction did not impair
Miller’s ability to present an effective defense. Miller says that the instruction
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prevented him from arguing that the photographs were a “mere incident” of his
consensual romantic relationship with the minor, but that is not a viable defense to
the charge against him. The government was not required to prove that making
explicit photographs was Miller’s sole or primary purpose for enticing the minor to
engage in sexually explicit conduct. It was enough to show that it was “a purpose”
for doing so.
II.
Miller next contends that the district court erred by enhancing his sentence
under 18 U.S.C. § 2251(e), which imposes a mandatory minimum sentence of 25
years on any defendant convicted of violating § 2251 who has one prior conviction
“under the laws of any State relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse,
abusive sexual contact involving a minor or ward, or sex trafficking of children.”
18 U.S.C. § 2251(e). The district court sentenced Miller under that provision
because he was convicted of sexual battery in Florida. 1 We review de novo the
district court’s determination that a prior conviction triggers a statutory sentencing
enhancement. See United States v. Howard, 742 F.3d 1334, 1341 (11th Cir. 2014).
Miller argues that his prior conviction for sexual battery does not qualify
under § 2251(e) because it did not require proof that his victim was a minor. See
1
Miller’s presentence investigation report says that he was convicted of sexual battery in
1999. The parties stipulated at trial, however, that he was convicted of that offense in 2002.
Whether Miller was convicted in 1999 or in 2002 has no bearing on his conviction qualifying for
a sentencing enhancement under § 2251(e).
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Fla. Stat. § 794.011(5) (1999) (making it a second degree felony to “commit[ ]
sexual battery upon a person 12 years of age or older, without that person’s
consent” and without “us[ing] physical force and violence likely to cause serious
personal injury”). According to Miller, only crimes involving minors can trigger
an enhanced sentence because the phrase “involving a minor or ward” in § 2251(e)
modifies each of the crimes listed before it (i.e., “aggravated sexual abuse,”
“sexual abuse,” and “abusive sexual contact”), instead of only the one crime
immediately preceding it (“abusive sexual contact”). We disagree.
In Lockhart v. United States, 577 U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 958 (2016), the
Supreme Court considered this precise question in the context of materially
indistinguishable statutory language in 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(2), which provides that
a defendant convicted of possessing child pornography under 18 U.S.C.
§ 2252(a)(4) is subject to a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence if he has a prior
conviction “under the law of any State relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual
abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor or ward.” Lockhart, 136 S. Ct.
at 961 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(2)). The only difference in the relevant
statutory texts is that § 2252(b)(2) refers to “abusive sexual conduct” and § 2251(e)
refers to “abusive sexual contact.” That distinction obviously is not material.
The Lockhart Court held that the phrase “involving a minor or ward”
modified only the crime immediately preceding it in the statute and did not modify
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the other listed crimes. Id. There is no reasonable justification for treating the
same phrase differently where it appears in § 2251(e). We therefore conclude that
the 25-year statutory mandatory minimum in § 2251 applies to any defendant with
a prior conviction relating to “abusive sexual contact involving a minor or ward,”
as well as to any defendant with a prior conviction relating to “aggravated sexual
abuse” or “sexual abuse,” whether or not that conviction involved a minor. 2 See
id. at 968.
Miller finally contends that, even under that interpretation of § 2251(e), his
sexual battery conviction does not trigger the sentencing enhancement because it is
not equivalent to a conviction for a crime that would constitute sexual abuse under
federal law. That argument ignores the plain text of the statute, which provides
that the enhancement applies to any defendant who has a prior state conviction
relating to sexual abuse. See 18 U.S.C. § 2251(e). “We have interpreted the
phrase ‘relating to’ broadly in the context of child exploitation offenses” like
§ 2251. United States v. Mathis, 767 F.3d 1264, 1284 (11th Cir. 2014); see also
United States v. McGarity, 669 F.3d 1218, 1262 (11th Cir. 2012) (explaining that
an identical provision in 18 U.S.C. § 2252A “does not simply mandate a
sentencing enhancement for individuals convicted of state offenses equivalent to
sexual abuse,” but “for any state offense that stands in some relation, bears upon,
2
We reject Miller’s rule of lenity argument for the same reasons the Supreme Court
rejected Lockhart’s. See Lockhart, 136 S. Ct. at 968.
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or is associated with” sexual abuse) (citing United States v. Sinerius, 504 F.3d 737,
743 (9th Cir. 2007)). Miller’s conviction for sexual battery clearly relates to
“sexual abuse” as that term is generally understood. See Sinerius, 504 F.3d at
740–43. The district court did not err in enhancing Miller’s sentence under
§ 2251(e) based on that prior conviction.
AFFIRMED.
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