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Case 22-1426, Document 79, 06/29/2023, 3536060, Page48 of 93

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reflecting clear congressional intent to apply to pre-enactment conduct).8

Legislative history confirms this conclusion. In initially enacting a special statute of limitations for child sex abuse offenses, Congress sought to “mak[e] it easier to prosecute offenders who commit sex crimes that may be difficult to detect quickly.” Weingarten, 865 F.3d at 54. But that limitations period proved to be “inadequate in many cases.” H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-66, at 54. Tellingly, the conference report offered the example of a child rapist who “could not be prosecuted” because he was “identified . . . as the perpetrator one day after the victim turned 25.” Id. Given that Congress bemoaned those offenders who escaped prosecution because the limitations period had expired, there is every reason to believe that it intended to preserve the ability to prosecute pre-enactment offenders whose limitations period had not yet expired. See United States v. Sure Chief, 438 F.3d 920, 924 (9th Cir. 2006) (concluding that in enacting the 2003 amendment,

8 Maxwell’s only response regarding the statute’s text is that the words “would” and “shall” are “forward-looking.” (Br.54). But those words readily apply in describing the application of the 2003 amendment to pre-enactment conduct. Consider an offense committed against a 16-year-old in the year 2000. The statute of limitations then in effect indeed “would . . . preclude prosecution” nine years in the future, once the victim turned twenty-five. The 2003 amendment ensured that “[n]o” such “statute of limitations . . . shall preclude such prosecution during the life of the child.”

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