Protecting Young Victims From Sexual Abuse Act of 2017
Floor Speech
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Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Conyers, Ms. Jackson Lee, and all of those who have spoken in support of this bill this morning, the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse Act.
It is exactly as it has been described. It is an important moment for us, in a bipartisan consensus that we have reached, to protect our young athletes. It has been articulated well, the purpose behind the bill, and it is a proud moment for all of us as we stand for these young athletes to defend them as they perform and use their God-given talents that make our Nation so proud.
So, without belaboring the point, Mr. Chairman, I just want to commend, again, Mrs. Brooks for introducing this important legislation, and I also urge all of my colleagues to support it.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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I am happy to introduce this manager's amendment to H.R. 1973, the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse Act. This amendment is very simple. It defines who is covered by the mandatory reporting requirement in the underlying bill. The definition harmonizes language with the underlying statute, defining this class not by location, but by simply keeping the jurisdictional reference where it belongs: in the national governing body or a member of a national governing body.
The amendment also defines the term ``event'' to include travel, practice, competition, and health or medical treatment. This definition is important as events in USA Gymnastics revealed abuse by USA Gymnastics' team doctor Larry Nassar, who molested dozens of young girls under the guise of medical treatment. Moreover, other allegations of abuse show that it sometimes took place during travel to various competitions.
The amendment also clarifies duties of national governing bodies.
Under the amendment, national governing bodies must implement reasonable procedures designed to avoid one-on-one interactions between minors and adults that are not within an observable or interruptible distance.
This amendment assures that the 47 different national governing bodies can implement procedures that make sense, given the sport they cover, the reach of their influence, and the resources available to them.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. Chair, in closing, I echo what has been said already, and I appreciate the comments of my colleagues and acknowledge, again, that the manager's amendment is very simple. It simply seeks to clear up language and define these terms. It is a necessary alteration to the bill, and I encourage our colleagues to support the amendment.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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I appreciate the gentleman's remarks and his support for this important legislation.
Victims should, of course, have reasonable opportunity to seek justice and face their accusers in court. This bill is a good one and fair to all parties, and I look forward to working with the gentleman to get it to the President's desk.
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I am honored today to speak in support of my legislation, the Protecting Against Child Exploitation Act, which aims to close a court- created loophole, and as the title suggests, further protect our children from predators.
When I first arrived to Congress after almost 20 years of litigating constitutional law cases and drafting legislation for municipalities to control the proliferation of sexually oriented businesses, I was deeply concerned to learn that this particular loophole even existed in current Federal law, which essentially allows a child rapist to admit to sexually abusing a child and yet still evade punishment.
The background is important to reiterate. As my chairman stated moments ago, this comes from a 2015 case, United States v. Palomino- Coronado, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the conviction of a child sex offender simply because the court determined the perpetrator lacked specific intent to record the disgusting images that were found on the offender's smartphone. This is despite the fact that the defendant admitted to sexually abusing the 7- year-old child from next door and memorializing the conduct.
In its opinion, the court decided the lack of purpose or specific intent was enough to overturn the conviction, even though the defendant himself took the photo of the heinous act and subsequently admitted to sexually abusing this child. This is absolutely in clear contradiction of our responsibility and this Congress' intention to protect America's children.
In Scripture, Romans 13 refers to the governing authorities as ``God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.'' I, for one, believe we have a moral obligation, as any just government should, to defend the defenseless.
My legislation presents a simple fix and updates title 18 of the U.S. Code to ensure future defendants are not able to circumvent the law by simply claiming a lack of intent, especially after knowingly creating a visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually conduct.
More specifically, my legislation amends section 2251 of title 18 to prohibit the production and transmission of a visual depiction of a real minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Furthermore, it amends current law to include prohibiting the depiction of a minor assisting any person in engaging in a sexually explicit act.
Lastly, to clarify potential circumstances of misinterpretation of the statute and to ensure the statute is not used erroneously to prosecute internet services providers when they have not engaged in wrongdoing, my legislation emphasizes that to be criminally liable under section (a)(3), an internet service provider must have actual knowledge that the child pornography is on its server and that it must intentionally transmit that image or intentionally cause its transmission.
We also take the step of prohibiting any criminal or civil liability for internet service providers who are required to transmit child pornography to law enforcement in response to a legal process, such as a search warrant in child exploitation cases. Of course, we would never anticipate a prosecution of an internet service provider for merely responding to a legal process, but it is my hope that explicitly providing for this immunity in the statute will further enhance the relationship between internet service providers and law enforcement to work together to combat these predators.
In answer to the opposition that we have heard here, it is important to reiterate this legislation does not create new mandatory minimums.
However, I would like to address the comments regarding the current law on mandatory minimum penalties under the production of child pornography statute.
There is simply no evidence that Federal prosecutors are abusing this statute. I think we should all recognize that producing child pornography is a horrific crime. It often means luring young children into acts that no one, man, woman, or child, should be forced to do.
It is not a photograph of a nude child. It is something far worse.
Each photo is a crime scene. Such a horrific act by the perpetrator requires the maximum amount of legal deterrents.
While mandatory minimums have reached much scrutiny in the drug statutes, in this venue for this statute, there could be no doubt that the penalties that exist under current law are appropriate. Child sexual exploitation is vastly underreported. The number of images of child pornography keeps growing and the images are becoming more and more depraved. The harm is too great to these victims not to have significant penalties available to deter this conduct and punish the producers of child pornography.
Every time an image of child pornography is viewed, the victim gets revictimized. Once an image is on the internet, it is irretrievable and can continue to circulate forever. This permanent record of a child's sexual abuse can alter his or her life forever. Many victims of child pornography suffer from feelings of helplessness, fear, humiliation, and lack of control, given that their images are available for others to view in perpetuity.
These images are becoming more sadistic and violent, and the age of the average victim is becoming younger and younger. It is a horrifying fact that it is not uncommon for even toddlers and infants to now be subjects of these images.
It is also important that there is no confusion about one fact: The very creation of these images is repulsive, regardless of whether or not the abuse was done with a specific intent of creating an image or if the intent to memorialize this conduct was a secondary thought.
Consider the facts of the case that led to this bill. As was mentioned, an adult male had sexual relations with a 7-year-old girl who lived next door and decided to photograph it. That is the production of child pornography. There is no question about it. No one should be permitted to escape responsibility merely by asserting they did not have a specific intent to create the image before they abused the child. The act of taking a photo or making a video is enough to demonstrate intent.
Mr. Speaker, that is what this bill does. It is appropriate that we are doing all this on the day that we recognize as National Missing Children's Day. I am going to urge all my colleagues to support the bill.
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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to just say a couple of important points in rebuttal to what we have heard.
For one thing, there has been no evidence that the cases referenced by the gentlewoman involving conduct between minors are being prosecuted at the Federal level. I have not seen even one that has been cited. The point here is that prosecutorial discretion has been a sufficient buffer.
In committee, our colleagues on the other side have invoked stories of juvenile offenders being charged for consensual conduct and placed on sex offender registries unjustly; however, these are all cases that were prosecuted at the local level. Not one that has been mentioned has been a Federal case.
It is important to note that, for offenders under 18, the Federal Department of Justice policy on charging juveniles means that juvenile prosecutions very rarely occur, and only if no State court can assume jurisdiction. In fact, certification from the Attorney General himself is necessary to proceed against a juvenile.
Again, I know of no such case in which a juvenile has been prosecuted federally under any child pornography statute. So while we appreciate and understand the concerns about mandatory minimum sentencing and its abuse, particularly with the drug statutes, again, it is important to reiterate here, that is not the case with child pornography.
For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I would oppose these arguments and trust that my colleagues will see the wisdom in supporting this very important and timely legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Madam Speaker, the concerns stated today are misplaced. The child pornography statutes have never been the subject of abuse by Federal prosecutors, and there is no evidence that that would happen in the future. However, the abuse that is being allowed and that we must address today is that of our children, and that abuse is being allowed because of a loophole that was, sadly, created by a Federal court.
Today we have an opportunity to correct that wrong. We have an opportunity to do what we all acknowledge to be the right thing: to defend the most defenseless among us. It is, indeed, an honor for us to take this action on the week that commemorates National Missing Children's Week and here, even, on this day, National Missing Children's Day.
I urge all my colleagues to join me in supporting the Protecting Against Child Exploitation Act. We hope that everyone will do the right thing here today.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Madam Speaker, it is not only unnecessary, but it is fashioned in such a manner which may potentially create the type of loophole that we are looking to close.
Under current law, so-called Romeo and Juliet cases, such as those between 19- and 50-year-olds, could be prosecuted under any of the child pornography laws--possession, production, or distribution. That has always been the case.
However, I reiterate that we know of no such instance that has been brought under any of these Federal provisions under the circumstances covered by this amendment, which further supports the fact that Federal prosecutors do not appear to be bringing such cases. There is just simply no evidence that has been produced to suggest otherwise. For that reason, the amendment is completely unnecessary, and it is based upon no evidence at all.
On the contrary, the underlying bill is based upon a real case where a real 7-year-old girl was sexually abused and photographed by a real sexual predator.
Our colleagues on the other side have also continually referred to Attorney General Sessions' recent charging memoranda which suggests that under the policy in his memo prosecutors will suddenly be forced to aggressively prosecute 19-year-olds who are engaging in consensual sexual conduct under this statute. But that notion is preposterous and is also based on no evidence.
As an initial matter, the minority completely ignores the fact that a prosecutor makes an initial determination as to whether to commence or decline prosecution. And this is distinct from the subsequent decision of what charges should be brought, which would only occur if the decision to prosecute is made in the first place.
According to the U.S. attorneys' manual, in making the initial determination to commence a prosecution, a prosecutor must consider whether ``a substantial Federal interest would be served by the prosecution,'' and whether, ``in his or her judgment: One, the person is subject to effective prosecution in another jurisdiction; or, two, there exists an adequate noncriminal alternative to prosecution.'' The Sessions memo doesn't change any of that, and it is absurd to think that the memo will cause the Department of Justice to suddenly shift its prosecutions to aggressively go after Romeo and Juliet cases.
This is especially ridiculous, as Attorney General Sessions had made clear from the outset, that the priorities of DOJ and this administration are to prosecute violent crimes and violent offenders.
I think that the minority just fundamentally misunderstands and mischaracterizes not only the Sessions memo but this legislation. For that reason, I urge all of my colleagues to oppose the Jackson Lee amendment.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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