## Facts

- Staff Sergeant Casey D. Roderick, a single father, babysat two children; afterward, an eight-year-old child reported sexual abuse and “inappropriate photos.”
- A search of Roderick’s home uncovered photographs and media suspected to be child pornography.
- At a judge-alone general court-martial, Roderick pleaded guilty to receiving and possessing child pornography charged via Article 134, UCMJ, incorporating 18 U.S.C. § 2252A, and to certain additional offenses; he contested other specifications.
- The military judge convicted Roderick of most contested charges, including one specification of using his daughter (CMR) to create visual depictions of “sexually explicit conduct” under 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), charged under Article 134, UCMJ.
- On that § 2251(a) specification, the defense requested special findings; the judge identified three photographs of CMR as “sexually explicit” even though none depicted her genitals or pubic area.
- On appeal, the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, applying constitutional limits on the CPPA, affirmed the CPPA-based findings only as lesser clause 2 Article 134 (“service-discrediting”) offenses and otherwise affirmed the remaining findings and sentence.

## Issues

1. Whether Roderick’s guilty plea to receiving child pornography could be affirmed as a lesser-included clause 2 Article 134 offense (service-discrediting conduct) after constitutional limitations on the CPPA, where the record did not expressly establish the images depicted “actual” minors.
2. Whether three photographs of CMR that showed nudity but did not display her genitals or pubic area were legally sufficient to prove “sexually explicit conduct” under 18 U.S.C. § 2256(2)(A) for a § 2251(a) conviction.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the modified CPPA-based findings as lesser-included clause 2 Article 134 offenses, holding the guilty plea remained provident to service-discrediting conduct.
- The court set aside the § 2251(a) specification involving CMR, holding the evidence was legally insufficient because the photographs did not depict a “lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area” as required by statute.
- The case was left for further action consistent with the set-aside specification, including any necessary sentence reassessment at the service court.

## Legal Principles

- A guilty plea may be affirmed to a lesser-included offense under Article 134, clause 2 when the record establishes the accused understood and admitted facts showing conduct “of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces,” even if the incorporated federal child-pornography statute cannot support the conviction as charged.
- Post-constitutional limitations on the CPPA, military appellate courts may sustain CPPA-based charges as clause 2 Article 134 offenses if the plea inquiry and record support service-discrediting conduct tied to child pornography.
- For 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), “sexually explicit conduct” includes a “lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area” under 18 U.S.C. § 2256(2)(A); the depiction must actually exhibit the genitals or pubic area.
- Nudity alone, without depiction of the genitals or pubic area, is insufficient to satisfy the “lascivious exhibition” element; failure to prove that element requires reversal for legal insufficiency.

## Conclusion

The court approved affirmance of CPPA-based guilty pleas as lesser-included service-discrediting offenses under Article 134 when the plea record supported that theory, but reversed a § 2251(a) conviction because photographs that did not depict the child’s genitals or pubic area could not, as a matter of law, constitute “sexually explicit conduct” under § 2256(2)(A).


United States v. Roderick, 62 M.J. 425 (C.A.A.F. 2006)