No. 22-1390

UNITED STATES,

Appellee,

v.

SEAN J. TRAHAN,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. George A. O'Toole, Jr., U.S. District Judge]

Before

Montecalvo, Selya, and Lynch, Circuit Judges.

William W. Fick, with whom Fick & Marx LLP was on brief, for appellant. Alexia R. De Vincentis, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Joshua S. Levy, Acting United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

August 8, 2024 MONTECALVO, Circuit Judge. In October 2021, defendant-appellant Sean J. Trahan pleaded guilty to possession and knowing access with intent to view child pornography, both in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B). The district court later sentenced Trahan to 126 months' imprisonment -- applying a sentencing enhancement based on Trahan's prior state conviction for possession of "visual material of child depicted in sexual conduct" that the court determined required the imposition of a ten-year mandatory minimum under § 2252A(b)(2).1 On appeal from his sentence, Trahan insists that his state conviction should not have triggered the ten-year mandatory minimum because the enhancement provision of § 2252A(b)(2) cannot cover state

1We note that the terminology used across the states to describe "child pornography" is wide-ranging and many states have opted to use terms other than "child pornography." See, e.g., Utah Code Ann. § 76-5b-201(2) (criminalizing possession of "child sexual abuse material"); Ala. Code § 13A-12-191 (criminalizing "[d]issemination or public display of obscene matter containing visual depiction of persons under 17 years of age involved in obscene acts"); Alaska Stat. Ann. § 11.61.127 (criminalizing "[p]ossession of child pornography"); Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-3553 (criminalizing possession of "visual depiction" of "sexual exploitation of a minor"); Ark. Code Ann. § 5-27-304 (criminalizing possession of images "depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child"); Cal. Penal Code § 311.1 (criminalizing possession of "[o]bscene matter depicting sexual conduct by minor"); cf. EARN IT Act of 2023, S. 1207, 118th Cong. § 6 (2023) (proposing that federal statutes replace the term "child pornography" with "child sexual abuse material," while retaining "the same legal meaning"). Here, we do not attempt to reconcile these many terms and, for clarity's sake, use, as appropriate, the terminology that Congress and the Massachusetts legislature have adopted.

- 2 - convictions under statutes that criminalize more conduct than § 2252A(b)(2) enumerates.

Trahan also mounts an Alleyne challenge to the district court's imposition of a consecutive six-month sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3147 for an offense he committed while on pretrial release. See Alleyne v. United States, 570 U.S. 99 (2013). Trahan argues that, because of the application of the § 2252A(b)(2) mandatory minimum, the additional consecutive sentence based on an uncharged violation violated the Sixth Amendment. For the reasons that follow, we reject Trahan's arguments and affirm the sentence.

I. Background

As this appeal follows a guilty plea, our recitation of the facts is derived from "the undisputed sections of the presentence investigation report [('PSR')] and the transcripts of the change-of-plea and sentencing hearings." United States v. Spinks, 63 F.4th 95, 97 (