[Download] "Criminal Law - First Circuit Denies Double-Intent Requirement for Internet Enticement of Minors - United States V. Dwinells." by Suffolk University Law Review * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free

eBook details

Title: Criminal Law - First Circuit Denies Double-Intent Requirement for Internet Enticement of Minors - United States V. Dwinells.
Author : Suffolk University Law Review
Release Date : January 22, 2009
Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
Pages : * pages
Size : 277 KB

Description

Since the advent of the Internet, Congress, law enforcement officials, and the public have tried to protect children from online sexual predators. (1) In 1996, Congress amended the Telecommunications Act, criminalizing the enticement of minors for sexual activity over the Internet. (2) In United States v. Dwinells, (3) the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, as a matter of first impression, considered whether section 2422(b) required a double-intent element: that is, whether the defendant had to possess not only the intent to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity, but also the intent that sexual activity occur. (4) The First Circuit, joining with all other circuits that have decided this issue, upheld the conviction by interpreting the statute to require only the intent to entice. (5) Beginning in the spring of 2002, Matthew Dwinells, a forty-year-old man from Lawrence, Massachusetts, engaged in a series of Internet communications with three "teenage girls." (6) The "girls" were actually law enforcement officials in two states conducting separate sting operations to catch online predators. (7) Thinking she was a fourteen-year-old from Ohio, Dwinells messaged "Maria" on numerous occasions about engaging in sexual activity and about the possibility of her visiting him in Massachusetts. (8) The visit never occurred, but the pair exchanged photographs, and "Maria" sent Dwinells her supposed underwear, which he kept in a drawer in his bedroom. (9)