## Facts

- Law enforcement executed a search warrant on Terry Lee Ward’s recreational vehicle and computer and found a hidden-camera video of a twelve-year-old girl (W.D.) nude and CDs containing thousands of child-pornography images.
- Ward concealed a camera in the RV hallway outside a shower and arranged for it to record W.D. while she undressed.
- Ward directed W.D. to undress in the hallway and used vocal commands and physical repositioning so that her nude body, including her pubic area, repeatedly faced the hidden camera; W.D. was unaware she was being filmed.
- Ward had previously been convicted in Arkansas state court of raping W.D.’s sister and sentenced to life without parole.
- Federal prosecutors charged Ward with sexual exploitation of a minor, 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) (based on the video), and possession of child pornography, 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B).
- After an earlier federal conviction was reversed due to denial of Ward’s right to be present at trial, Ward was retried and again convicted on both counts.
- The district court imposed 360 months on the § 2251(a) count and 120 months on the possession count, concurrent with each other but consecutive to the undischarged portion of Ward’s state life sentence.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove Ward used a minor to engage in “sexually explicit conduct” under 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), where the conduct alleged was a “lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area” under 18 U.S.C. § 2256(2)(A)(v).
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion by imposing statutory-maximum sentences and ordering the federal sentences to run consecutively to Ward’s undischarged state sentence under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a) and 3584.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit affirmed Ward’s convictions and sentence.
- The court held the evidence permitted a rational juror to find the video depicted a lascivious exhibition of W.D.’s genitals or pubic area, not mere nudity.
- The court held the sentence was substantively reasonable and that ordering the federal sentence consecutive to the state term was within the district court’s discretion.

## Legal Principles

- “Lascivious exhibition” under § 2256(2)(A)(v) is assessed based on the overall content and context; mere nudity alone is not dispositive.
- A jury may be instructed using the nonexclusive Dost factors to evaluate whether a depiction constitutes a lascivious exhibition.
- Evidence of a defendant’s orchestration—camera placement, framing, duration, and directing a minor’s movements—can support a finding that the depiction was designed to display the minor’s pubic area for sexual purposes.
- Sentencing courts have broad discretion to weigh the § 3553(a) factors, and disagreement with the weight assigned to particular factors generally does not establish abuse of discretion.
- Under 18 U.S.C. § 3584, a district court may order a federal sentence to run consecutively to an undischarged state sentence when supported by the § 3553(a) factors.

## Conclusion

The Eighth Circuit upheld Ward’s § 2251(a) conviction because the hidden-camera recording, viewed in context and in light of Ward’s deliberate staging and direction, could be found to depict a lascivious exhibition of a minor’s pubic area; it also upheld statutory-maximum concurrent federal terms ordered consecutive to Ward’s state life sentence as a permissible exercise of sentencing discretion.


United States v. Ward, 686 F.3d 879 (8th Cir. 2012)