United States v. Jungers

• Citation: 702 F.3d 1066
• Decision Date: 07 January 2013
• Docket Number: Nos. 12–1006,12–1100.,s. 12–1006
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellant v. Daron Lee JUNGERS, Defendant–Appellee. United States of America, Plaintiff–Appellant v. Ronald Bonestroo, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

702 F.3d 1066

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Daron Lee JUNGERS, Defendant–Appellee.

United States of America, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Ronald Bonestroo, Defendant–Appellee.

Nos. 12–1006, 12–1100.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: Oct. 18, 2012.

Filed: Jan. 7, 2013.

Brendan V. Johnson, USA, argued, Mark E. Salter, USA, on the briefs, Sioux Falls, SD, for appellant.

Michael James Butler, argued, Sioux Falls, SD, Ronald A. Parsons, Jr., on the briefs, Sioux Falls, SD, for appellee Daron Lee Jungers.

Neil Fulton, FPD, argued, Pierre, SD, Jason J. Tupman, AFPD, on the brief, Sioux Falls, SD, for appellee Ronald Bonestroo.

Before RILEY, Chief Judge, COLLOTON and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

RILEY, Chief Judge.

Separate juries convicted Daron Lee Jungers and Ronald Bonestroo (collectively, defendants) of attempted sex trafficking of a minor, in violation of the Trafficking Victim Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA).¹ The district court in each case granted each defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal under Fed.R.Crim.P. 29. The government appeals. Having jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3731, we reverse. See United States v. Boesen, 491 F.3d 852, 855 (8th Cir.2007).

I. BACKGROUND

In February 2011, state and federal law enforcement officers working undercover in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, placed several online advertisements in an effort to apprehend individuals seeking to obtain children for sex. Officers pretended to be a man offering his girlfriend's underage daughters for sex while his girlfriend was out of town.

Jungers and Bonestroo each responded to the advertisements. After several e-mails discussing details about the girls, their ages, and the rates for sex, and after receiving an age-regressed photograph of adult female officers, Jungers indicated he wanted an eleven-year old girl for an hour so she could perform oral sex on him. Jungers then traveled from Sioux City, Iowa, to the house in Sioux Falls that law enforcement officers were using for the undercover operation. Jungers confirmed he would pay to receive oral sex from the eleven-year-old girl, but indicated he was uncomfortable doing so at the house and would prefer to take the girl with him instead. Police arrested Jungers when he entered the house.

Bonestroo also agreed to meet an undercover agent at the house after several e-mails and recorded telephone conversations about the girls and the rates for sex with them. After receiving an age-regressed photograph, Bonestroo agreed to pay $200 to have sex with the fourteen-year-old twin girls for an hour. When Bonestroo arrived at the house, he asked if the twins were there and showed the undercover officer the money he brought to complete the transaction. Officers arrested Bonestroo shortly thereafter.

Jungers and Bonestroo were each charged with attempted commercial sex trafficking, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591 and 1594(a). At their respective trials, neither Jungers nor Bonestroo presented any evidence in defense. Rather than challenge the facts, both argued they were merely consumers or purchasers of commercial sex acts, not “sex traffickers” of children. The defendants each timely moved for judgment of acquittal pursuant to Fed.R.Crim.P. 29(a) on that basis. The district court in each case took the motions under advisement. Jungers's and Bonestroo's respective juries found them guilty.

On December 5, 2011, the district court in Jungers's case acquitted Jungers and discharged him from confinement, finding the “evidence presented at trial [was] legally insufficient to support a conviction for sex trafficking under § 1591.” The district court reasoned “the purpose of § 1591 is to punish sex traffickers and that Congress did not intend to expand the field of those prosecuted under that statute to those who purchase sex made available by traffickers.”

On January 4, 2012, the district court in Bonestroo's case likewise acquitted Bonestroo of his conviction under §§ 1591 and 1594(a) because of insufficient evidence and discharged him from confinement. The district court concluded “[a]lthough a bare reading of at least one of these three verbs [recruits, entices, and obtains] may support a determination that § 1591 was meant to encompass purchasers of sex acts from minors, the entire language and design of the statute as a whole indicates that it is meant to punish those who are the providers or pimps of children, not the purchasers or the johns.” The government appeals both orders, arguing “[t]here is no ‘customer exception’ to 18 U.S.C. § 1591.”

II. DISCUSSIONA. Standard of Review

A district court “must enter a judgment of acquittal of any offense for which the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction.” Fed.R.Crim.P. 29(a).

In reviewing a district court's grant of a motion for a judgment of acquittal, this court reviews the sufficiency of the evidence de novo, viewing evidence in the light most favorable to the government, resolving conflicts in the government's favor, and accepting all reasonable inferences that support the verdict. The standard of review is very strict, and we will reverse a conviction only if we conclude that no reasonable jury could have found the accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

United States v. Ward, 686 F.3d 879, 882 (8th Cir.2012) (quoting

United States v. Johnson, 639 F.3d 433, 437–38 (8th Cir.2011)) (quotation marks omitted). “When a sufficiency argument hinges on the interpretation of a statute, we review the district court's statutory interpretation de novo.” United States v. Reed, 668 F.3d 978, 982 (8th Cir.2012) (quoting United States v. Gentry, 555 F.3d 659, 664 (8th Cir.2009)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

B. Plain Meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1591

Section 1591 prohibits knowingly recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, obtaining or maintaining “a minor, knowing the minor would be caused to engage in commercial sex acts.” ²United States v. Elbert, 561 F.3d 771, 777 (8th Cir.2009). Section 1594(a) makes an attempted violation of § 1591 a federal crime.

Since Congress enacted § 1591 on October 28, 2000, as part of the TVPA, the lion's share of prosecutions under § 1591 have involved offenders who have played some part in supplying commercial sex acts. See, e.g., United States v. Chappell, 665 F.3d 1012, 1014 (8th Cir.2012); United States v. Palmer, 643 F.3d 1060, 1063 (8th Cir.2011). In United States v. Cooke, 675 F.3d 1153, 1155 (8th Cir.2012), we affirmed the conviction of an attempted purchaser under § 1591, but did not consider the issue raised in this appeal. Accord United States v. Strevell, 185 Fed.Appx. 841, 844–46 (11th Cir.2006) (unpublished per curiam) (affirming conviction of attempted purchaser of sex from a minor in violation of §§ 1591 and 1594).

The district court and the parties in these consolidated appeals agree § 1591 is unambiguous. The sole issue raised on appeal is whether “[t]he plain and unambiguous provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 1591 apply to both suppliers and consumers of commercial sex acts.” We conclude they do.

“Our starting point in interpreting a statute is always the language of the statute itself.” United States v. S.A., 129 F.3d 995, 998 (8th Cir.1997). “[I]f the intent of Congress can be clearly discerned from the statute's language, the judicial inquiry must end.” United States v. Behrens, 644 F.3d 754, 755 (8th Cir.2011) (quoting United States v. McAllister, 225 F.3d 982, 986 (8th Cir.2000)) (internal marks omitted).

Where statutory language is plain, “the sole function of the courts—at least where the disposition required by the text is not absurd—is to enforce it according to its terms.” [Lamie v. U.S. Tr., 540 U.S. 526, 534, 124 S.Ct. 1023, 157 L.Ed.2d 1024 (2004) ]. Thus, if the relevant text is not reasonably susceptible to more than one interpretation[, i.e. ambiguous], we will not look beyond it unless application of the plain language “will produce a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of its drafters.” United States v. Ron Pair Enters., 489 U.S. 235, 242, 109 S.Ct. 1026, 103 L.Ed.2d 290 (1989).

Contemp. Indus. Corp. v. Frost, 564 F.3d 981, 985 (8th Cir.2009); see also United States v. Jongewaard, 567 F.3d 336, 339 (8th Cir.2009) (“Our inquiry therefore begins and ends with the unambiguous text of the statute.”).

“In interpreting the statute at issue, ‘[w]e consider not only the bare meaning’ of the critical word or phrase ‘but also its placement and purpose in the statutory scheme.’ ” Holloway v. United States, 526 U.S. 1, 6, 119 S.Ct. 966, 143 L.Ed.2d 1 (1999) (quoting Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 145, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995)). “[I]n expounding a statute, we must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy.” U.S. Nat'l Bank of Or. v. Indep. Ins. Agents of Am., Inc., 508 U.S. 439, 455, 113 S.Ct. 2173, 124 L.Ed.2d 402 (1993) (quoting United States v. Heirs of Boisdoré, 49 U.S. (8 How.) 113, 122, 12 L.Ed. 1009 (1850)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Under the heading “Sex trafficking of children or by force, fraud, or coercion,” § 1591(a) provides

Whoever knowingly—

(1) in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, obtains, or maintains by any means a person; or

(2) benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture which has engaged in an act described in violation of paragraph (1),

knowing, or in reckless disregard of the fact, that means of force, threats of force, fraud, coercion described in subsection (e)(2), or any combination of such means will be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act, or that the person has not attained the age of 18 years and will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act, shall be punished as provided...