United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-3225 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JAY A. LIESTMAN, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. No. 3:20-cr-00006-jdp-1 — James D. Peterson, Chief Judge. ____________________

ARGUED OCTOBER 27, 2023 — DECIDED APRIL 8, 2024 ____________________

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, WOOD, BRENNAN, SCUDDER, ST. EVE, KIRSCH, JACKSON- AKIWUMI, LEE, and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.1 SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Before us is Jay Liestman’s chal- lenge to the federal sentence he received for transporting child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(1). The

1 Circuit Judge Kolar did not participate in the consideration or deci- sion of this case. 2 No. 21-3225 district court imposed an enhanced mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment under § 2252(b)(1) be- cause Liestman had been convicted seven years earlier of pos- sessing child pornography in violation of Wisconsin law. The question presented is whether that state conviction qualifies as a predicate conviction under § 2252(b)(1), which prescribes enhanced penalties for certain recidivist child sex offenders. Aligning with the approach of a majority of the circuits, we hold that the answer is yes and affirm Liestman’s sentence. I In October 2019 Jay Liestman took to the Kik messenger app and divulged his sexual interest in underage boys to an undercover FBI agent. In ensuing discussions, Liestman sent the agent a link to 561 videos depicting sexual assaults of children. A federal prosecution followed, and Liestman pleaded guilty to a single count of transporting child pornography. See 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(1). This was not his first child sex offense. Several years earlier, Liestman’s efforts to meet a fourteen-year-old boy for sex culminated in two felony convictions under Wisconsin law, one for attempted child enticement, see Wis. Stat. § 948.07, and a second for the possession of child pornography, see id. at § 948.12(1m). At the federal sentencing, the government contended that Liestman’s prior conviction for possessing child pornography triggered 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(1)’s enhancement for repeat sex offenders, which increases the mandatory minimum term of imprisonment from 5 to 15 years if the defendant has a prior conviction “under the laws of any State relating to … the pro- duction, possession, receipt, mailing, sale, distribution, ship- ment, or transportation of child pornography.” Liestman in- sisted that the enhancement did not apply because Wis. Stat. No. 21-3225 3 § 948.12(1m) reached offense conduct that Congress did not expressly enumerate in the text of § 2252(b)(1). Relying on our decision in United States v. Kaufmann, 940 F.3d 377 (7th Cir. 2019), the district court disagreed and sentenced Liestman to the enhanced mandatory minimum of 15 years. The parties renew their positions on appeal, and we chose to convene the full court to decide whether Liestman’s prior offense of conviction for possessing child pornography under Wis. Stat. § 948.12(1m) can serve as a predicate offense under § 2252(b)(1). Doing so requires application of the categorical approach. II A For all the consternation it tends to elicit, the categorical approach serves an essential need. Throughout the United States Code, Congress has attached adverse consequences to the fact that a per