⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The Seventh Circuit hears Douglas Gibson's challenge to a forty-year sentence. Federal prosecutors say he secretly recorded a child with hidden cameras in the child's home. He later pleaded guilty to child sexual exploitation and to committing a felony while required to register as a sex offender. A two thousand ten Indiana sexual-misconduct-with-a-minor conviction now matters to his sentence. If it qualifies under a federal repeat-offender provision, the minimum prison term for sexual exploitation rises from fifteen to twenty-five years, and the maximum from thirty to fifty. To decide whether the prior conviction qualifies, judges compare the legal elements of the state crime with the federal benchmark, not simply the facts of Gibson's earlier conduct. A key question is whether Indiana's statute defines separate offenses or different ways to commit one offense. Gibson will argue that the state law reaches conduct beyond the federal benchmark and that the trial judge supplied a new legal theory the prosecutors had not offered. The government will argue that the conviction qualifies and that a judge may resolve the legal question without waiting for a party to spell out every theory. Assistant Federal Defender Jacob Leon will argue for Gibson; Assistant United States Attorney Brian Reitz will argue for the government.

United States v. Douglas Gibson (No. 25-2446) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, argued September 29, 2026.