United States v. Walker, No. 18-1355 (8th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this CaseThe Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for transferring obscene materials to a minor, receipt of child pornography, and sexual exploitation of a minor. The court held that the district court did not violate defendant's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights by excluding the evidence of the victim's sexual communications with other men; any error in excluding "fantasy source material" was harmless because the exhibit was cumulative; the district court did not abuse its discretion by limiting defendant's cross-examination of the victim to 90 minutes; the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to instruct the jury that knowledge of the victim's age was an element of the offense under 18 U.S.C. 2251(a); the evidence was sufficient to support defendant's convictions; and the court rejected defendant's claim that his 264 month sentence was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Court Description: Gruender, Author, with Kelly and Grasz, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. The district court did not err in excluding evidence of the victim's sexual communications with other men as the evidence did not fall within the exceptions to Rule 412's prohibition on the admission of such evidence; defendant's proposed evidence concerning "fantasy source material" was cumulative and it was not error to exclude it; the district court did not abuse its discretion by limiting defendant's cross-examination of the victim to 90 minutes, four times the length of the government's direct examination; the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to instruct the jury that knowledge of the victim's age is an element of the offense under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2251(a); evidence was sufficient to support defendant's convictions; Eighth Amendment challenge to defendant's sentence, which was less than the statutory maximum, is rejected. Judge Kelly, concurring.
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