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Case 22-1426, Document 57, 02/28/2023, 3475900, Page156 of 208
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Case 1:20-cr-00330-AJN Document 207 Filed 04/16/21 Page 15 of 34

Weingarten, 865 F.3d at 54. Congress enacted the limitations provision of the PROTECT Act because it found the prior statute of limitations was “inadequate in many cases.” H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-63, at 54 (2003). For example, a person who abducted and raped a child could not be prosecuted beyond this extended limit—even if DNA matching conclusively identified him as the perpetrator one day after the victim turned 25.” Id.

Maxwell makes no argument based on the statute’s text. Instead, she contends that because the House version of the bill included an express retroactivity provision absent from its final form, the Court should infer that Congress did not intend the statute to apply to past conduct. However, the legislative history makes clear that Congress abandoned the retroactivity provision in the House bill only because it would have produced unconstitutional results. The Supreme Court has explained that a law that revives a time-barred prosecution violates the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution, but a law that extends an un-expired statute of limitations does not. Stogner v. California, 539 U.S. 607, 632–33 (2003). Senator Leahy, who co-sponsored the PROTECT Act, expressed concerns in a committee report that the proposed retroactivity provision was “of doubtful constitutionality” because it “would have revived the government’s authority to prosecute crimes that were previously time-barred.” 149 Cong. Rec. S5137, S5147 (Apr. 10, 2003) (statement of Sen. Leahy). Congress removed the provision shortly thereafter for this reason. The removal of the express retroactivity provision shows only that Congress intended to limit the PROTECT Act to its constitutional applications, including past conduct—like Maxwell’s—on which the statute of limitations had not yet expired.

Both the text and history of the PROTECT Act’s amendment to § 3283 reflect that it applies Maxwell’s conduct charged in the S1 superseding indictment. The Court could stop here.

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