United States v. Moreira-Bravo
| Citation | 56 F.4th 568 |
| Decision Date | 27 December 2022 |
| Docket Number | 21-3355 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee v. Luis Alfredo MOREIRA-BRAVO, Defendant - Appellant |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit) |
Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellant and appeared on the brief was Heather Quick, AFPD, of Cedar Rapids, IA.
Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellee was William Reiser Ripley, AUSA, of Davenport, IA. The following attorney(s) appeared on the appellee brief; Amanda W. Searle, AUSA, of Davenport, IA.
Before GRUENDER, BENTON, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
Luis Alfredo Moreira-Bravo pleaded guilty to transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a) after the district court1 denied his motion in limine . He appeals that denial, and we affirm.
In May 2020, twenty-six-year-old Moreira-Bravo drove from Minnesota to Iowa to meet with fourteen-year-old R.M. Moreira-Bravo and R.M. had sex in Moreira-Bravo's car, drove to Minnesota, and had sex again. R.M. never told Moreira-Bravo that she was under eighteen. She instead told him that she was at least nineteen years old. On May 7, officers observed Moreira-Bravo and R.M. together and arrested Moreira-Bravo. When questioned, he claimed that he believed R.M. was nineteen years old.
Moreira-Bravo was indicted for transporting a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity under 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a). He filed a motion in limine asking the district court to instruct the jury that § 2423(a) required the Government to prove that (1) he knew R.M. was underage and (2) he intended the unlawful nature of the sexual activity. The district court denied the motion. Moreira-Bravo conditionally pleaded guilty while reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion in limine . See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2). In his plea agreement, Moreira-Bravo stipulated that he transported R.M. from Iowa to Minnesota intending to engage in sexual activity with her, that they engaged in sexual activity upon arrival in Minnesota, and that he was more than 120 months older than fourteen-year-old R.M. at the time. To satisfy the § 2423(a) element of "intent that the [transported] individual engage in ... sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense," the agreement named the Minnesota state offense of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree, which at the time criminalized intercourse with a victim between thirteen and sixteen years old by a person more than twenty-four months older. See Minn. Stat. § 609.344, subd. 1(b) (2019), amended by Minn. Stat. § 609.344, subd. 1a(b) (2021). Mistake of age was no defense to a violation of section 609.344 if the defendant was more than 120 months older than the victim. Id.
"We review questions of statutory interpretation de novo ." United States v. Schostag , 895 F.3d 1025, 1027 (8th Cir. 2018). Section 2423(a) states:
A person who knowingly transports an individual who has not attained the age of 18 years in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any commonwealth, territory or possession of the United States, with intent that the individual engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, shall be fined under this title and imprisoned not less than 10 years or for life.
This case concerns the two mens rea requirements: "knowingly" and "with intent that." Moreira-Bravo argues that § 2423(a) requires proof that he both (1) knew R.M. had not attained the age of eighteen and (2) intended the unlawfulness of the sexual activity. The district court construed § 2423(a) to require neither. We agree with the district court.
Moreira-Bravo first argues that § 2423(a) requires knowledge of the victim's underage status. We follow the nine other circuits to address this question and hold that it does not. See United States v. Tavares , 705 F.3d 4, 19-20 (1st Cir. 2013) ; United States v. Griffith , 284 F.3d 338, 350-51 (2d Cir. 2002) ; United States v. Tyson , 947 F.3d 139, 144 (3d Cir. 2020) ; United States v. Washington , 743 F.3d 938, 943 (4th Cir. 2014) ; United States v. Daniels , 653 F.3d 399, 410 (6th Cir. 2011) ; United States v. Cox , 577 F.3d 833, 838 (7th Cir. 2009) ; United States v. Taylor , 239 F.3d 994, 997 (9th Cir. 2001) ; United States v. Lacy , 904 F.3d 889, 898 (10th Cir. 2018) ; United States v. Morgan , 45 F.4th 192, 209 (D.C. Cir. 2022), cert. denied , ––– U.S. ––––, ––– S.Ct. ––––, ––– L.Ed.2d ––––, 2022 WL 17408288 (Dec. 5, 2022) ; cf. United States v. Daniels , 685 F.3d 1237 (11th Cir. 2012) (per curiam) ().
Moreira-Bravo invokes two presumptions of statutory construction found in Flores-Figueroa v. United States , 556 U.S. 646, 129 S.Ct. 1886, 173 L.Ed.2d 853 (2009), and Rehaif v. United States , 588 U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 204 L.Ed.2d 594 (2019). Flores-Figueroa established the text-based presumption that the adverbial mens rea "knowingly" applies to all subsequently listed elements (the "all-subsequent-elements presumption"). See 556 U.S. at 650, 129 S.Ct. 1886. Rehaif appealed to the longstanding presumption that a mens rea applies to every element that separates criminal from innocent conduct (the "otherwise-innocent-conduct presumption"). See 139 S. Ct. at 2196-97. Under these presumptions, Moreira-Bravo argues, the mens rea "knowingly" applies to the age requirement because it is a subsequently listed element that separates innocent from criminal conduct. We disagree.
"[W]e begin with the statute's plain language," United States v. Raiburn , 20 F.4th 416, 422 (8th Cir. 2021), giving "words ... the meaning that proper grammar and usage would assign them," Nielsen v. Preap , 536 U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 954, 965, 203 L.Ed.2d 333 (2019) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Prior to Flores-Figueroa , we noted that "qualifying words and phrases ... apply only to the words or phrases immediately preceding or following them." See United States v. Mendoza-Gonzalez , 520 F.3d 912, 915 (8th Cir. 2008) (citing 2A Norman J. Singer & J.D. Shambie Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 47:33 (7th ed. 2007) ), cert. granted, judgment vacated, 556 U.S. 1232, 129 S.Ct. 2377, 173 L.Ed.2d 1289 (2009), and abrogated by Flores-Figueroa , 556 U.S. 646, 129 S.Ct. 1886. Under this approach, "knowingly" would modify only the verb "transports," and not the subsequent elements. But in ordinary usage, "a mental state adverb can modify some or all of the remaining words in a sentence." United States v. Figueroa , 165 F.3d 111, 115 (2d Cir. 1998). For example, "if a bank official says, ‘Smith knowingly transferred funds to his brother's account,’ we would normally understand the bank official's statement as telling us that Smith knew the account was his brother's." Flores-Figueroa , 556 U.S. at 650, 129 S.Ct. 1886. Or the adverb might attach to only part of the ensuing phrase, as in the sentence, Id. at 659, 129 S.Ct. 1886 (Alito, J., concurring). And the sentence, "Ted knowingly stole expensive toys from a toy store that was on the verge of bankruptcy," indicates that Ted knew he stole toys, knew they were expensive, and knew they came from the toy store. But whether Ted knew about the bankruptcy is ambiguous. Thus, in some statutory phrases that use the word "knowingly," "neither grammar nor punctuation resolves the question of how much knowledge Congress intended to be sufficient for a conviction." Figueroa , 165 F.3d 111, 115 ; see also Liparota v. United States , 471 U.S. 419, 425, 105 S.Ct. 2084, 85 L.Ed.2d 434 (1985) (quoting W. LaFave & A. Scott, Criminal Law § 27 (1972)) ("[I]t is not at all clear how far down the sentence the word ‘knowingly’ is intended to travel.").
The all-subsequent-elements presumption helps resolve this ambiguity. In Flores-Figueroa , the Supreme Court interpreted 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1), which penalizes the offender who "knowingly ... uses ... a means of identification ... of another person." The statute's similar syntax to § 2423(a) is apparent. Compare § 1028A(a)(1) (), with § 2423(a) (). Faced with § 1028A(a)(1), the government claimed it did not need to prove that the defendant knew the identification he used belonged to "another person." Flores-Figueroa , 556 U.S. at 648, 129 S.Ct. 1886. The Court rejected this argument because "[a]s a matter of ordinary English grammar, it seems natural to read the statute's word ‘knowingly’ as applying to all the subsequently listed elements of the crime." Id. at 650, 129 S.Ct. 1886. Flores-Figueroa now stands for a presumption that the mens rea "knowingly" applies to all subsequently listed elements in a statute. See, e.g., United States v. Bruguier , 735 F.3d 754, 758 (8th Cir. 2013) (en banc).
But the all-subsequent-elements presumption is not a bright-line rule; it "can be rebutted where the ‘context’ or ‘background circumstances’ of a statute lead to a different reading." See Bruguier , 735 F.3d at 761 (quoting Flores-Figueroa , 556 U.S. at 652, 129 S.Ct. 1886 ). Justice Alito, concurring in Flores-Figueroa , identified § 2423(a) as an "example" of a statute where "context may well rebut th[e...
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