Christopher v. United States

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
• Writing for the Court: Lee, Circuit Judge.
• Citation: Christopher v. United States, 148 F.4th 885 (7th Cir. 2025)
• Docket Number: 23-2976
• Decision Date: 18 August 2025
• Parties: Charles W. CHRISTOPHER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.

148 F.4th 885

Charles W. CHRISTOPHER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 23-2976

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit

Argued April 8, 2025

Decided August 18, 2025

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 4:22-cv-4187 — Sara Darrow, Chief Judge.

Daniel Scott Harawa, Attorney, Adam Bret Murphy, Attorney, New York University School of Law, New York, NY, for Petitioner-Appellant.

W. Scott Simpson, Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Springfield, IL, for Respondent-Appellee.

Before Hamilton, Lee, and Maldonado, Circuit Judges.

Lee, Circuit Judge.

Charles Christopher pleaded guilty to attempting to entice a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) and to committing a felony offense "involving a minor" while under a reporting requirement in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2260A. The latter offense was predicated on his § 2422(b) conviction.

The following year, Christopher filed a pro se motion to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 on several grounds, including ineffective assistance of counsel. As he saw it, his § 2260A conviction was invalid because his § 2422(b) attempt offense did not involve a minor but instead involved a government agent pretending to be a minor. Christopher faulted his counsel for failing to challenge the § 2260A charge on this basis or advise him that the charge was legally defective before his guilty plea.

The district court rejected Christopher's interpretation of § 2260A and denied relief. We agree with the district court. Even if we were to assume that Christopher's counsel's performance was deficient, Christopher was not prejudiced by his counsel's actions because his conviction for attempted enticement of a minor under § 2422(b) triggers § 2260A. We therefore affirm.

I

In 2020, while on supervised release for a previous conviction for attempting to entice a minor to engage in illicit sexual activity, Christopher began sending online messages to someone he believed to be a 15-year-old girl. Unbeknownst to him, he was really communicating with an undercover law enforcement agent.

At one point, Christopher requested a video call, and the agent joined the call, posing as the child. But for whatever reason, Christopher could not hear anything she was saying during the call, and his camera appeared to be malfunctioning. So, they ended the call, and Christopher and the agent continued their conversation via text messages.

During that exchange, Christopher made explicit sexual references, laying bare his desire to have sex with the 15-year-old girl. He asked if he could pick her up and go to a hotel. The agent gave Christopher an address, and the next morning Christopher drove there with alcoholic beverages in tow (which he had agreed to bring for her).

Law enforcement agents observed Christopher circling the neighborhood in his vehicle and then parking a block away from the given address. He then walked to the residence, where the agents arrested him.

Christopher was charged in a two-count superseding indictment with attempted enticement of a minor in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) and committing one of several enumerated felony sex offenses, while being required to register as a sex offender, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2260A. He subsequently entered a plea of guilty to both counts. The district court held a change-of-plea hearing on August 5, 2021, during which the court conducted a thorough plea colloquy, ensuring Christopher was entering his plea knowingly and voluntarily.

A few months later, the court sentenced Christopher to 144 months of imprisonment on the attempted enticement count and the mandatory 120 months of imprisonment on the § 2260A count, which by statute had to be served consecutively. See 18 U.S.C. § 2260A. The district court also sentenced Christopher to an additional 24 months of custody for violating his supervised release, and it imposed lifetime supervised release for the new convictions. Christopher appealed but later filed a motion to dismiss his appeal, which we granted.

Christopher then moved under § 2255 to vacate his conviction and sentence. In that motion, he asserted, among other things, that he was actually innocent of the § 2260A charge because the offense did not involve a real minor and that his counsel was ineffective for allowing him to plead guilty without raising that argument in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The district court denied the motion without an evidentiary hearing, concluding, in relevant part, that Christopher's counsel had not provided constitutionally ineffective assistance by advising him to plead guilty to the § 2260A offense. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(b) (requiring an evidentiary hearing unless the records of the case conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief). The court declined to issue a certificate of appealability.

Christopher sought appellate review and requested a certificate of appealability from this court. We granted this request as to one issue: whether Christopher's counsel was ineffective for not arguing that, for § 2260A to apply, a predicate offense "involving a minor" must involve an actual minor.¹ We appointed counsel, and the parties briefed the issue.

II

The centerpiece of this appeal is 18 U.S.C. § 2260A, which provides, in pertinent part:

Whoever, being required by Federal or other law to register as a sex offender, commits a felony offense involving a minor under section 1201, 1466A, 1470, 1591, 2241, 2242, 2243, 2244, 2245, 2251, 2251A, 2260, 2421, 2422, 2423, or 2425, shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 10 years in addition to the imprisonment imposed for the offense under that provision.

18 U.S.C. § 2260A (emphasis added). Christopher maintains on appeal that his counsel was ineffective for failing to argue and advise him that he could not have violated § 2260A because it required the predicate offense to be based on conduct targeting a real minor.

A federal prisoner may bring an ineffective assistance of counsel claim in a collateral proceeding under § 2255, alleging a violation of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. See Norweathers v. United States, 133 F.4th 770, 775 (7th Cir. 2025) (citing Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500, 509, 123 S.Ct. 1690, 155 L.Ed.2d 714 (2003)). To prevail, the claimant must satisfy the two-part test announced in Strickland v. Washington. See Bridges v. United States, 991 F.3d 793, 803 (7th Cir. 2021) (citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984)). This test requires the claimant to show both that counsel's performance was deficient and that the claimant was prejudiced as a result. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. It is not an easy test to satisfy. Deficient performance and prejudice "are at best difficult showings to make." Lickers v. United States, 98 F.4th 847, 857 (7th Cir. 2024) (quoting Ebert v. Gaetz, 610 F.3d 404, 411 (7th Cir. 2010)), reh'g denied, No. 22-1179, 2024 WL 2848676 (7th Cir. June 5, 2024), and cert. denied, — U.S. —, 145 S. Ct. 407, 220 L.Ed.2d 159 (2024).

The first inquiry, deficient performance, turns on whether "counsel's conduct 'fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.' " Anderson v. United States, 94 F.4th 564, 581 (7th Cir. 2024) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052). To mitigate the distortive effects of hindsight, our scrutiny of counsel's performance is "highly deferential," and we "must indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052.

To establish the second showing, prejudice, Christopher must demonstrate "that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052.

We examine the performance and prejudice prongs of Strickland sequentially, reviewing de novo any legal questions that arise. See White v. United States, 8 F.4th 547, 551 (7th Cir. 2021) (citing Waagner v. United States, 971 F.3d 647, 653 (7th Cir. 2020)).

A

We begin by reviewing whether counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687-88, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Christopher contends that counsel's performance was deficient because he did not consider, much less argue, that § 2260A did not cover Christopher's attempt violation under § 2422(b). According to Christopher, the phrase "involving a minor" in § 2260A limits the provision's applicability to felony offenses targeted at real minors and excludes offenses targeted at adult members of law enforcement. 18 U.S.C. § 2260A. Thus, Christopher argues, because it was undisputed that no real minor was implicated in the conduct underlying his § 2422(b) conviction, his counsel's failure to challenge the § 2260A charge was objectively unreasonable.

In applying the objective standard of reasonableness to assess counsel's performance, we generally defer to counsel's strategic decisions. See Bridges, 991 F.3d at 803. Yet that deference only goes so far. As the Supreme Court has held:

[S]trategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation. In other words, counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary.

Hinton v. Alabama, 571 U.S. 263, 274, 134 S.Ct. 1081, 188 L.Ed.2d 1 (2014) (quoting Strickland, 466 U.S. at 690-91, 104 S.Ct. 2052).

Thus, counsel's "ignorance of a point of law that is fundamental to his case combined with his failure to perform basic research on that point is a quintessential example of unreasonable performance under Strickland." Bridges, 991 F.3d at...