## Facts

- Michael Lewis Clark, a U.S. citizen, lived primarily in Cambodia beginning around 1998 while maintaining ties to the United States.
- Evidence showed Clark engaged in sexual acts with minor boys in Cambodia in exchange for money over a period of years.
- Cambodian police arrested Clark after receiving information from a non-governmental organization; Clark confessed to sexual activity with numerous children.
- Clark was transferred for prosecution in the United States and charged under 18 U.S.C. § 2423(c) for engaging in illicit sexual conduct after traveling in foreign commerce.
- A federal jury in the Western District of Washington convicted Clark.

## Issues

1. Whether 18 U.S.C. § 2423(c), as applied to a U.S. citizen who traveled abroad and then engaged in commercial sex acts with minors entirely outside U.S. territory, is a valid exercise of Congress’s Foreign Commerce Clause power.
2. Whether Foreign Commerce Clause analysis must be limited by the same framework and constraints commonly applied to the Interstate Commerce Clause.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed Clark’s conviction.
- The court held that § 2423(c) is constitutional as applied and falls within Congress’s power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.
- The majority concluded the statute permissibly targets U.S. citizens’ participation in an international commercial market for child sexual exploitation and includes a foreign-travel nexus.
- A dissent argued the majority’s approach risked effectively unbounded federal authority over citizens’ conduct abroad.

## Legal Principles

- Congress’s power under the Foreign Commerce Clause is broad and has not been confined to the same limits imposed in certain Interstate Commerce Clause cases.
- Congress may regulate the channels of foreign commerce, including international travel by U.S. citizens, and may attach criminal consequences to conduct abroad when tied to such travel.
- Commercial sexual exploitation of children constitutes economic activity within an international market that Congress may address through foreign-commerce regulation.
- Extraterritorial application to U.S. citizens is supported by the combination of a foreign-commerce nexus and the general principle that a nation may regulate its nationals’ conduct abroad.
- Statutory limits matter: § 2423(c) targets commercial child-sex conduct and requires travel in foreign commerce, rather than criminalizing all foreign conduct by U.S. citizens.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld § 2423(c) under the Foreign Commerce Clause, concluding that Congress may criminalize U.S. citizens’ commercial sexual exploitation of minors abroad when the offense is linked to the citizen’s travel in foreign commerce, and it affirmed Clark’s conviction on that basis.


United States v. Clark, 435 F.3d 1100 (9th Cir. 2006)