[00:00:02] Speaker 00:
morning.

[00:00:06] Speaker 00:
First I want to thank the court for moving us to last.

[00:00:08] Speaker 00:
These are uncomfortable matters to talk about and I'm glad we don't have an enormous audience for it.

[00:00:14] Speaker 00:
I'd like to make two points this morning.

[00:00:16] Speaker 00:
The first that

[00:00:18] Speaker 00:
being that not every photograph taken during sex with a minor is punishable under Section 2251, and the second, that the government failed to present adequate circumstantial evidence that a parent engaged in sex with the purpose of creating pornography.

[00:00:35] Speaker 00:
As to the first point, I would like to suggest an analogy.

[00:00:39] Speaker 00:
Some people make a reservation at a restaurant intending to order, eat, and enjoy the food.

[00:00:45] Speaker 00:
With that intent, they go to the restaurant, they order the food,

[00:00:48] Speaker 00:
When the food arrives at the table, it's beautifully presented, and the diner pulls out his or her cell phone and snaps a picture, proceeds to eat and enjoy the food.

[00:00:58] Speaker 00:
That person did not order the food with the intent of photographing it, although photographing it might have, in some way, enhanced the enjoyment of it.

[00:01:07] Speaker 00:
Other people actually do make a reservation and order the food with the intent to photograph the food.

[00:01:14] Speaker 00:
In that case, there's circumstantial evidence of the person's intent.

[00:01:18] Speaker 00:
He or she is a food photographer, or tells their dining companion that they want to replicate this recipe, or wants to impress people on social media that they're eating at trendy, fancy restaurants.

[00:01:34] Speaker 00:
In this case, that kind of circumstantial evidence is absent.

[00:01:38] Speaker 00:
Most importantly, there is not one shred of evidence exactly when and under what certain circumstances the photographs were taken.

[00:01:49] Speaker 00:
The photographs were certainly taken during the sexual encounter, but there is no evidence about whether it was at the beginning of the sexual encounter, the middle, or the end.

[00:02:00] Speaker 03:
the government chose not to elicit the contextual facts from the minor and only get- I'm just assuming, well, how would the timing of the photographs affect the ability to infer such a forbidden purpose?

[00:02:20] Speaker 00:
Well, the government makes the argument- Let's put aside what the government says.

[00:02:25] Speaker 03:
What do you say?

[00:02:26] Speaker 00:
What I say is,

[00:02:29] Speaker 00:
The photographs were made.

[00:02:32] Speaker 00:
There was one incident.

[00:02:33] Speaker 00:
There was one encounter.

[00:02:34] Speaker 00:
There were not three separate incidents.

[00:02:36] Speaker 00:
There was one encounter during which photographs were taken.

[00:02:40] Speaker 00:
We don't know any of the circumstances of that.

[00:02:43] Speaker 00:
There's no evidence that there were instructions given, that the action was paused in order to set up a camera.

[00:02:56] Speaker 00:
None of that circumstantial evidence that you see in the other cases cited in our brief and the government's brief.

[00:03:02] Speaker 05:
But there is circumstantial evidence.

[00:03:04] Speaker 05:
This is not of a type that the other cases talk about.

[00:03:07] Speaker 05:
But this is a circumstantial evidence case, right?

[00:03:10] Speaker 05:
You're saying it's weak circumstantial evidence.

[00:03:12] Speaker 00:
Well, the only evidence is the picture itself.

[00:03:15] Speaker 00:
And I'm saying the picture itself, snapping the photograph itself,

[00:03:19] Speaker 00:
is not enough evidence.

[00:03:22] Speaker 00:
It's not sufficient to show that he engaged in the sexual conduct with the intent to photograph it, to create pornography.

[00:03:30] Speaker 00:
There has to be something else besides the taking of the photographs.

[00:03:34] Speaker 05:
The nature of the photograph is one can draw entrances for that.

[00:03:39] Speaker 00:
I mean, we wouldn't be here if it weren't pornography.

[00:03:43] Speaker 00:
It's got to be pornography to even be here.

[00:03:47] Speaker 00:
So let me restate that.

[00:03:49] Speaker 00:
Snapping a photograph of a minor that's sexual in nature is not, by itself, does not satisfy the statute.

[00:03:59] Speaker 00:
There has to be evidence of the defendant's specific intent that he engage in the sexual contact with the specific intent.

[00:04:08] Speaker 03:
Sex has to be the root to the picture, right?

[00:04:13] Speaker 03:
Not the thing itself.

[00:04:16] Speaker 00:
There has to be sexual conduct for the purpose of taking a picture.

[00:04:29] Speaker 00:
So sexual conduct

[00:04:33] Speaker 00:
in which a picture is taken is not necessarily enough.

[00:04:37] Speaker 00:
You have to show the specific intent that he engaged in this conduct with the specific intent to take a picture.

[00:04:45] Speaker 02:
If you, I'm just thinking about the facts here, and one of the photographs does seem to lend itself particularly strongly to

[00:04:54] Speaker 02:
the prosecution's theory, if I were in, just to take your analogy, if I were in a restaurant and food came and the question was, you know, did I prominently display food for the purpose of taking a picture?

[00:05:06] Speaker 02:
It comes, it looks great, and I pick up my salad to make it more in the light and I snap a picture.

[00:05:14] Speaker 02:
Have I prominently displayed my salad for the purpose of taking a picture?

[00:05:19] Speaker 02:
And I think the answer in this procedural posture is yes.

[00:05:24] Speaker 00:
I think that you can form an intent in the middle of your dinner.

[00:05:29] Speaker 00:
When the food arrives and you ask your friend to please shine your flashlight from your cell phone so I have better lighting, and you do all of that, then now you do have a specific intent to take a photograph.

[00:05:41] Speaker 00:
But there's no evidence of that here.

[00:05:44] Speaker 00:
Isn't there?

[00:05:44] Speaker 00:
No, there really isn't.

[00:05:46] Speaker 00:
And there's no evidence of when that photograph was taken.

[00:05:51] Speaker 00:
So for example, I mean, really,

[00:05:54] Speaker 00:
the questioning of J.A.

[00:05:59] Speaker 00:
was so minimal.

[00:06:00] Speaker 00:
It really was, was your penis in his mouth?

[00:06:05] Speaker 00:
Was his penis in your anus?

[00:06:07] Speaker 00:
That's pretty much it.

[00:06:09] Speaker 00:
So there's no testimony about whether if he had just been conducting performing oral sex on J.A.

[00:06:17] Speaker 00:
and then snapped the picture, then a photograph in which he's holding J.A.'

[00:06:21] Speaker 00:
's penis isn't necessarily

[00:06:25] Speaker 00:
sort of something extra bringing it into focus.

[00:06:31] Speaker 00:
The government tries to divide these into separate incidents.

[00:06:37] Speaker 00:
It's one sexual encounter in which there are multiple ways of touching.

[00:06:43] Speaker 00:
If the oral sex is first, in which presumably

[00:06:52] Speaker 00:
He is also touching Jay's penis with his hand, and then snaps a photograph.

[00:06:59] Speaker 00:
Then no, that isn't holding your salad up to the light or asking your friend to create better light, but there's absolutely no detail here.

[00:07:08] Speaker 00:
There's no testimony about the order that it happened, the circumstances, whether the time lapse between the world sex and the photograph was one second,

[00:07:22] Speaker 00:
one minute, there are no instructions regarding posing the defendant.

[00:07:31] Speaker 02:
It's a little odd to read purpose that way, given that the

[00:07:40] Speaker 02:
The pornography statute would apply if, on your hypothesis, the photograph were not followed by oral sex, but it would not apply if it were followed by oral sex.

[00:07:53] Speaker 02:
In other words, you say it doesn't apply in this circumstance because the purpose was really to have the sex, to have the penetration or the oral sex.

[00:08:02] Speaker 02:
and yet if all that happened were they come in the room, da-da-da-da, everything up to or but the oral sex on your hypothesis facts, then there would be a purpose.

[00:08:16] Speaker 00:
Because really my argument is we don't know because they didn't put in any evidence and that was their burden.

[00:08:22] Speaker 00:
We don't know from the trial testimony.

[00:08:25] Speaker 02:
And you're just saying the purpose might have in fact been different and that's why those two cases would be treated differently.

[00:08:30] Speaker 00:
Right.

[00:08:32] Speaker 00:
It was truly, absolutely bare bones.

[00:08:38] Speaker 00:
At the trial, defense counsel assumed for some reason that the photographs came afterwards.

[00:08:47] Speaker 00:
But there's no evidence of that at all.

[00:08:51] Speaker 00:
And in fact, the court also made that assumption and ruled that

[00:08:58] Speaker 00:
Mr. Torres directed the victim to lie in the bed in a certain posture, for which there's no evidence, held out his own hand to stimulate the victim's penis for the camera, for which there's no evidence.

[00:09:10] Speaker 00:
The photos were not taken during the first two alleged sexual acts, for which there is no evidence.

[00:09:17] Speaker 00:
Defense counsel did also make a general Rule 29 motion.

[00:09:20] Speaker 00:
So regardless of whether he was arguing it

[00:09:24] Speaker 00:
if the photographs came last, it makes no difference for our purposes here.

[00:09:28] Speaker 00:
I also would like to make the point, well, a couple points.

[00:09:35] Speaker 00:
One is that the photographs, which I actually would urge the court to look at, are really, there are four photographs.

[00:09:46] Speaker 00:
Three of them are virtually identical.

[00:09:47] Speaker 00:
And then there's one where,

[00:09:52] Speaker 00:
the defendant allegedly is holding Jay's penis.

[00:09:58] Speaker 00:
And I make that point to say this is not different poses.

[00:10:08] Speaker 00:
It's all the same, except one is closer with the hand in it.

[00:10:14] Speaker 00:
The other point I

[00:10:18] Speaker 00:
wanted to make back to what does it mean to engage in sex for the purpose of taking a picture.

[00:10:26] Speaker 00:
If every picture snapped during a sexual encounter with a minor is a violation of the statute, then really I think we know from what we read in the newspapers that millions of teenagers who are engaged in having sex with each other for no other purpose than engaging in sex with each other

[00:10:45] Speaker 00:
and snap a picture can be prosecuted under this statute.

[00:10:49] Speaker 00:
And that really isn't the intent of this statute.

[00:10:52] Speaker 00:
This is to punish people who are trying to create child pornography.

[00:10:58] Speaker 00:
And there's no evidence that that is what Mr. Torres was trying to do here.

[00:11:04] Speaker 05:
Thank you very much.

[00:11:08] Speaker 02:
You look like you have a question.

[00:11:09] Speaker 02:
I'm just trying to understand what the millions of teenagers are taking pictures of.

[00:11:16] Speaker 00:
Oh, they're taking, well, they're taking pictures of everything in their lives, including their sexual encounters.

[00:11:25] Speaker 02:
With one another?

[00:11:26] Speaker 00:
With one another, yes.

[00:11:28] Speaker 03:
No one reads in the paper.

[00:11:39] Speaker 01:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:11:40] Speaker 01:
May it please the Court, Alinda Jones, for the United States.

[00:11:43] Speaker 01:
Counsel says that the sequence of events in this case matters, but it doesn't.

[00:11:50] Speaker 01:
The basis for the child pornography charge was the lascivious display of genitalia.

[00:12:00] Speaker 01:
And that's what we argued in the MJOA argument.

[00:12:02] Speaker 01:
That's what we argued to the jury.

[00:12:05] Speaker 01:
And what the boy testified to was that a pellet enticed him into his parents' bedroom.

[00:12:13] Speaker 01:
Appellant took off the boy's clothes.

[00:12:15] Speaker 01:
Appellant directed the boy to lie down on the bed.

[00:12:19] Speaker 01:
And it is true that the testimony trial was ambiguous about

[00:12:24] Speaker 01:
exactly what happened next because it was extremely difficult for the boy to testify about these circumstances.

[00:12:32] Speaker 01:
But it's clear both from the content of the photographs and from the boy's testimony that what was occurring at the time the photographs were being taken was that he was in a position of posture

[00:12:44] Speaker 01:
of lascivious display of his genitalia.

[00:12:48] Speaker 01:
And the government, as we offered in our brief, we are happy to provide the photographs to the court for its review under appropriate protective circumstances.

[00:12:58] Speaker 01:
But the boy is fully spread across the bed.

[00:13:02] Speaker 01:
His legs are apart.

[00:13:05] Speaker 01:
His erect penis is very prominent.

[00:13:08] Speaker 01:
The focus of all four of these photographs is the genitalia.

[00:13:13] Speaker 01:
The particular photograph that we think is of greatest significance in this proof shows appellant's hand, the boy identified appellant's arm and hand, shows his hand sort of positioning the boy's penis as the photograph is a closer look.

[00:13:31] Speaker 01:
If you can imagine, if you have a friend who's a gardener,

[00:13:33] Speaker 01:
The gesture that you see is what your friend might use to pull closer the prize rose bloom or pull closer the biggest tomato on the vine.

[00:13:45] Speaker 01:
Let me show you this more closely.

[00:13:47] Speaker 01:
And we think that... Yes, Your Honor.

[00:13:51] Speaker 03:
What you do is disaggregate the sexual encounter into the moment where a picture is taken.

[00:14:02] Speaker 03:
When you do that, it's possible.

[00:14:07] Speaker 03:
I'm not sure if it works even with that.

[00:14:10] Speaker 03:
But the disaggregated moment, it's much easier to find the purpose of that to be taking the picture than the sexual encounter.

[00:14:22] Speaker 03:
Well, Your Honor, there are... That seems to me a distortion of any notion of what this statute is about.

[00:14:31] Speaker 01:
Well, Your Honor, you will see in other cases where the courts find that the purpose of the sexual encounter, when it was actually an act between, a mutual act between the individuals, find that the purpose was also to take these photographs, they will note that there was a pause in the action, so to speak.

[00:14:54] Speaker 01:
So let's pause it.

[00:14:55] Speaker 01:
Let's posit the chain of events that counsel has suggested.

[00:15:00] Speaker 01:
So then we would be able to argue.

[00:15:02] Speaker 01:
Let's say the oral act occurred and then the photographing.

[00:15:06] Speaker 01:
So the government would then argue appropriately that appellant induced the boy to go into the bedroom.

[00:15:12] Speaker 01:
Appellant took the boy's clothes off.

[00:15:13] Speaker 01:
Appellant directed him to lie down on the bed.

[00:15:16] Speaker 01:
Appellant engaged in oral sex.

[00:15:19] Speaker 01:
in order to stimulate the boy, which resulted in the erect penis, which enabled the appellant to take the series of photographs of that genitalia.

[00:15:28] Speaker 03:
But it would seem miraculously to take the sex out of sexual encounters.

[00:15:33] Speaker 01:
No, Your Honor.

[00:15:33] Speaker 03:
That doesn't say the sexual purpose.

[00:15:36] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, what we're saying and what the cases clearly say and what appellant concedes

[00:15:42] Speaker 01:
is that the taking of a photograph doesn't have to be the sole purpose.

[00:15:47] Speaker 03:
Nobody in this case cites what appears to be the leading Supreme Court case on interpreting comparable language, which is Mortenson, a 1944 case, where you have language

[00:16:01] Speaker 03:
saying anyone who know of it, this is the Mann Act, knowingly transports and interstate commerce, the woman and girl for the purpose of prostitution, et cetera, with the intent and purpose to induce child abuse, prostitution, and so forth.

[00:16:16] Speaker 03:
And the Supreme Court says the intention

[00:16:25] Speaker 03:
to have the girls engaging in the conduct must be the dominant motive of such interstate movement.

[00:16:36] Speaker 03:
You and the council on the other side disregard and pay no attention to that, as I think has been true of most of the circuit courts addressing this issue.

[00:16:47] Speaker 01:
I believe there are some courts that have addressed the two together, but I acknowledge I did not focus on that.

[00:16:53] Speaker 01:
Your Honor and the government would be happy to address that in a post-argument submission if the court would be interested in that.

[00:17:02] Speaker 01:
But I think we have to note as well that these are distinct pieces of legislation, that the courts have recognized that Congress has said that

[00:17:15] Speaker 01:
that there's such an overwhelming interest in discouraging the use of children and committing sexual acts against children and using them to produce pornographic images that this particular statute needs to be interpreted broadly.

[00:17:31] Speaker 01:
So we think that at least there's a current distinction.

[00:17:34] Speaker 03:
So because of the strong purpose, the rule of lenity is out and also close attention to the language is out.

[00:17:40] Speaker 01:
Well, the language of the statute refers to the purpose, Your Honor.

[00:17:44] Speaker 01:
It doesn't say dominant at all.

[00:17:46] Speaker 03:
And none of the courts... When you think of a... I mean, this is a spin on the restaurant metaphor.

[00:17:54] Speaker 03:
What I thought of was a couple who goes abroad.

[00:17:57] Speaker 03:
for a vacation, they go to some beautiful places and they take some pictures there.

[00:18:03] Speaker 03:
And let's suppose that in one of the pictures, one of the partners gestures to some particularly beautiful aspect of the scenery.

[00:18:18] Speaker 03:
They went abroad to take the picture for the purpose of taking the picture.

[00:18:22] Speaker 01:
We are all right.

[00:18:24] Speaker 01:
There are other elements in this case.

[00:18:26] Speaker 01:
That's just one factor that's important to this analysis.

[00:18:29] Speaker 01:
But there are other elements in this case that are comparable to cases in other circuits.

[00:18:34] Speaker 01:
We cite Moore law.

[00:18:34] Speaker 03:
I understand that.

[00:18:35] Speaker 03:
I have to say I've read those cases.

[00:18:37] Speaker 03:
And I found them confused in almost every respect, self-contradictory, paying little attention to the language, little or no attention.

[00:18:50] Speaker 01:
Well, Your Honor, appellant

[00:18:52] Speaker 01:
Appellant's argument seems to suggest that the only way the government could prove the necessary purpose here is if we had direct evidence perhaps from his mouth.

[00:19:05] Speaker 03:
I don't think they're saying that.

[00:19:07] Speaker 03:
They're saying you need much better circumstantial evidence.

[00:19:09] Speaker 01:
The better circumstantial evidence here, we're not sure what exactly that would be, because we would argue that even if you assume that one of the sex acts occurred before, or even both, as defense counsel argued below and as the court assumed below, both acts occur before the photography occurs.

[00:19:31] Speaker 01:
We would say that there was a break in the chain of action, because as I noted in one of my footnotes, if that's the chronology,

[00:19:39] Speaker 01:
then appellant had to pause because the anal act at least required him to be partially disrobed.

[00:19:46] Speaker 01:
The boy testified, and it's undisputed, that appellant was fully clothed when he took the photographs.

[00:19:53] Speaker 01:
So he had to have paused, redressed himself,

[00:19:57] Speaker 01:
reached for his phone to use it as a camera.

[00:20:00] Speaker 01:
There's a break in the action here.

[00:20:01] Speaker 01:
It's not part of the sexual encounter.

[00:20:04] Speaker 05:
You spoke of the purpose of the statute to construe broadly to root out child pornography.

[00:20:13] Speaker 05:
What do you do with Ms.

[00:20:13] Speaker 05:
Rowland's point that your reading of the statute will capture far more activity than what we traditionally think of as child pornography?

[00:20:26] Speaker 05:
The teenagers, when she talked about the prevalence of teenagers using telephones while engaging in sexual activity.

[00:20:36] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, that is the literal reading of the statute.

[00:20:38] Speaker 01:
And it's, I think, a little more difficult.

[00:20:43] Speaker 01:
And the cases have kind of addressed that.

[00:20:45] Speaker 01:
The cases say when there is actual mutual sexual activity occurring at the time the photographs are taken.

[00:20:53] Speaker 01:
And there may be momentary differences here.

[00:20:55] Speaker 01:
When there's mutual sexual acts occurring between the two parties, then it is a little more difficult to tease out

[00:21:03] Speaker 01:
the particular purposes and motives of engaging in that act.

[00:21:07] Speaker 01:
Because when you're engaging in that act, it's more likely you're doing it for other purposes.

[00:21:13] Speaker 01:
Your own satisfaction, expressing your affection for the other person, those are the arguments made.

[00:21:19] Speaker 01:
But here, we had at a minimum, we had a

[00:21:23] Speaker 01:
pause in that kind of action, and then we have what is a lascivious display of opportunity.

[00:21:29] Speaker 03:
There almost necessarily have to be some sort of pause.

[00:21:33] Speaker 03:
I don't know about how things happen these days, but I would think to take a picture involves some interruption of an ordinary sexual encounter.

[00:21:47] Speaker 03:
No.

[00:21:48] Speaker 01:
Not necessarily the kind of interruption that we are talking about would have had to have occurred here, because again, accepting the chronology that's been posited, or that the court accepted below, at least he had to redress himself.

[00:22:04] Speaker 02:
I don't follow that.

[00:22:05] Speaker 02:
I mean, to me, the evidence does not pin down the chronology.

[00:22:11] Speaker 02:
And the way that I think is most challenging for the government to view it

[00:22:19] Speaker 02:
is the defendant entices the boy into the room, there's oral sex, there's a photograph, there's undressing, there's

[00:22:34] Speaker 02:
further, there's anal sex.

[00:22:36] Speaker 02:
And that is the whole objective there arguably is for a purpose of having the sex and it violates the DC criminal code.

[00:22:47] Speaker 02:
But the issue here is this pornography charge is a much longer sentence and is this act for the purpose of it?

[00:22:58] Speaker 01:
Well, Your Honor, Congress certainly is well aware.

[00:23:01] Speaker 01:
We can assume that Congress is aware of the way the courts have interpreted this statute.

[00:23:06] Speaker 01:
And the courts have not held that.

[00:23:08] Speaker 01:
Maybe Congress looked at the Supreme Court.

[00:23:12] Speaker 01:
I would assume that Congress is aware of that as well.

[00:23:15] Speaker 01:
And yet, the concern that you're expressing would appear to be one that the statute

[00:23:23] Speaker 01:
uh... needs to be addressed not one where the decisions of the other courts finding that the language of the statute permits these prosecutions that the circumstantial evidence is sufficient

[00:23:35] Speaker 01:
Because those courts will find that these prosecutions are appropriate in certain circumstances, even when there isn't a court.

[00:23:45] Speaker 03:
Circumstantial versus direct.

[00:23:46] Speaker 03:
It seems to me they have nothing to do with it.

[00:23:48] Speaker 03:
There's almost never going to be a case where the defendant says, I did all this for the purpose of taking a picture, right?

[00:23:57] Speaker 03:
That's not going to happen.

[00:23:57] Speaker 01:
There are certain cases where there is evidence that the perpetrator invited the child over to his house, saying, I'd like to take some pictures of us doing things.

[00:24:10] Speaker 01:
We do have those cases.

[00:24:11] Speaker 03:
That's pretty close to my hypothetical.

[00:24:13] Speaker 03:
That's going to be very, very rare.

[00:24:15] Speaker 01:
It is going to be, yes, absolutely.

[00:24:16] Speaker 03:
And you're asking for an interpretation of the statute that sweeps miles beyond that.

[00:24:21] Speaker 01:
Well, Your Honor, the kinds of circumstantial, we can't imagine what other kinds of circumstantial evidence we can come up with short of a direct statement like that from the defendant.

[00:24:32] Speaker 03:
Well, there seem to be cases for this elaborate photographic equipment, right, which

[00:24:40] Speaker 03:
It seems to me to suggest that the dominant purpose or even a dominant purpose is likely to be taking pictures.

[00:24:52] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor, but I think we also now have to recognize that what occurred in this case is people don't set up or need to set up cameras like that because we are all probably carrying around our cameras with our cell phones.

[00:25:05] Speaker 01:
So recognizing that change in the technology

[00:25:08] Speaker 01:
just because the technology has advanced doesn't mean that there aren't other pieces of evidence in the record to allow us to conclude that a dominant or a purpose of doing this.

[00:25:21] Speaker 03:
What the change in technology means is that a very minor purpose

[00:25:28] Speaker 03:
can be fulfilled in the course of the relationship without much effort and without it being at all preeminent among the purposes of the perpetrator?

[00:25:41] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:25:42] Speaker 01:
But again, we think that in this particular case, and regardless of the order or the sequence of the acts, in this particular case,

[00:25:52] Speaker 01:
we have enough of the factors to allow a reasonable juror to conclude that a motive, a dominant purpose of this overall encounter was to enable the taking of these photographs.

[00:26:06] Speaker 01:
Otherwise, why would he have paused to take the photographs?

[00:26:09] Speaker 01:
It required some time to do so.

[00:26:11] Speaker 01:
If this is really an encounter that is primarily to engage in sexual activity between the two individuals, why would there have been a pause at all?

[00:26:20] Speaker 01:
Or why would he have performed the oral sex, then stopped, taken the pictures, then performed the anal sex, or had the boy perform the anal sex on him?

[00:26:32] Speaker 01:
I mean, there is significance in the fact that the actual mutual activity had to stop.

[00:26:42] Speaker 01:
in order for these photographs to be taken.

[00:26:45] Speaker 01:
And I'm sorry, I believe that my time is expired and I would be happy to answer additional questions if there are any.

[00:26:51] Speaker 04:
Thank you very much.

[00:26:52] Speaker 04:
Ms.

[00:26:52] Speaker 04:
Rowland.

[00:26:53] Speaker 01:
We would like the court to affirm.

[00:26:55] Speaker 04:
We'll give you one minute, Ms.

[00:26:56] Speaker 04:
Rowland.

[00:27:01] Speaker 00:
It's no excuse to say that it was difficult for the boy to testify, and that's why we didn't pull out a full story from him.

[00:27:15] Speaker 00:
In terms of the government's argument that perhaps there was a break in the chain of action when

[00:27:27] Speaker 00:
the defendant had to become at least partially undressed in order for this anal sex to happen.

[00:27:37] Speaker 00:
Well, my first point is there's no evidence about the chain of events and the sequence of events.

[00:27:42] Speaker 00:
And the second is the government knows that that is not the sequence of events because they have the boys' grand jury testimony.

[00:27:51] Speaker 00:
So I think it's disingenuous to argue a particular sequence of events

[00:27:57] Speaker 00:
that they know didn't happen.

[00:27:59] Speaker 00:
If there are no further questions, we'll pass.

[00:28:08] Speaker 05:
The case is submitted.