Constitutionality of 18 USC § 2423(c) (criminalizing “illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place”); Whether Congress has the authority to regulate an American citizen's conduct in another country under the Foreign Commerce Clause (US Const Art I, § 8, cl 3); Congress’s authority under the Necessary & Proper Clause (Art I, § 8, cl 18); Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution & Child Pornography (the Optional Protocol); Missouri v Holland

The court affirmed defendant-Rife’s conviction under § 2423(c), which criminalizes “illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place,” holding that the statute was a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the Necessary and Proper Clause’s authority to enact treaties. After teaching in Cambodia, Rife, a U.S. Citizen, returned to the U.S. and was indicted on charges of illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place for engaging in noncommercial sexual conduct with two of his minor Cambodian students. He moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that Congress lacked the authority to indict him under the Foreign Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause. The district court did not address the Commerce Clause argument, but denied dismissal under the Necessary and Proper Clause, which authorized Congress to implement treaties—in this case, the Optional Protocol. He then entered a conditional plea of guilty to one count. On appeal, the court first considered his argument under the Foreign Commerce Clause. It held that because the conduct was “noncommercial,” involving no commerce or trade of any kind, his conviction under § 2423(c) “was not an exercise of Congress’s power to ‘regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.’” Thus, it could not stand under the Commerce Clause. The court then considered whether his conviction could be upheld under the Necessary and Proper Clause’s power to enact treaties. It cited Holland, which involved the Migratory Bird Act of 1918, in which the Supreme “Court held, in a sentence regarded since as ipse dixit: ‘If the treaty is valid there can be no dispute about the validity of the statute under Article I, Section 8, as a necessary and proper means to execute the powers of the Government.’” The court concluded that holding was binding. “The Optional Protocol is undisputedly a valid treaty; and we cannot say that § 2423(c) as applied to noncommercial sex offenses against children is so unrelated to the treaty’s provisions as to put this case beyond the Court’s holding in Holland.”