10-2715 U.S. v. Taylor

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Child enticement
Sexual activity

Masturbation is not sexual activity within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 2422(b) which makes it a crime to use any means of interstate commerce to entice a child to engage in unlawful sexual activity.

“Congress will have to define ‘sexual activity’ more broadly than ‘sexual act’ if it wants to bring the kind of behavior engaged in by the defendant in this case within the prohibition of section 2422(b) via the fondling and child-solicitation offenses found in the Indiana criminal code, when the defendant neither made nor, so far as appears, attempted or intended physical contact with the victim. In the meantime, however, assuming the defendant’s conception of the breadth of the Indiana statutes is correct, our interpretation of the federal statute will not allow the likes of the defendant to elude just punishment.”
Reversed and Remanded.

10-2715 U.S. v. Taylor

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Moody, J., Posner, J.

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