Appeals court upholds sex crimes conviction of former missionary
A former Edmond missionary found guilty of sexually abusing children at a Kenyan orphanage lost his first appeal Wednesday.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ex-missionary’s 40-year prison sentence and conviction.
Matthew Lane Durham, 24, is in federal prison on four counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. The counts involve three girls and a boy ranging in age from 5 to 14 at the time of the 2014 offenses.
Durham maintains his innocence even though he confessed in writing and on video while in Kenya. He contended the confessions were coerced out of fear, threats and having his passport taken from him.
During the 2015 trial in Oklahoma City federal court, text message evidence showed Durham blamed his actions on a demon named Luke.
Appellate judges voted 2-1 to uphold the conviction. The lengthy opinion and dissent focused mostly on a constitutional issue — whether the United States could prosecute him for crimes in Africa.
Durham was charged under a statute accusing him of traveling abroad and engaging in noncommercial sex acts with minors. He challenged the constitutionality of the statute, “arguing that Congress exceeded its authority under the Foreign Commerce Clause,” according to the majority opinion.
Durham also argued noncommercial illicit sexual activity abroad has no relation to foreign commerce so his conviction cannot stand. The appeals court, though, rejected Durham’s argument.
“Congress could reasonably conclude that United States citizens and permanent residents who, in the aggregate, travel to foreign countries and commit illicit sex acts there substantially affect foreign commerce,” Judge Scott Matheson Jr. wrote in the opinion.
In the dissent, Judge Harris Hartz wrote that the only foreign “commerce” identified by federal prosecutors is commercial sex trafficking of children.
“There is no evidence in this case of any commercial sexual activity. I fail to see how conduct like that of defendant has any impact on commercial sexual activity,” Hartz wrote. “In my view, the Foreign Commerce Clause does not authorize Congress to prohibit noncommercial sexual assaults, no matter how heinous, committed by Americans abroad who formed the intent to commit the acts after arriving abroad.”
Hartz also noted that the Supreme Court has provided little, if any, guidance regarding congressional power under the Foreign Commerce Clause to regulate the conduct of Americans abroad. The judge suggested the Supreme Court could address it in this case.
“He invites us to put the question of constitutionality squarely before the Supreme Court for its judgment,” Durham’s attorney, Stephen Jones, said Wednesday. “We will do exactly that.”
Jones also criticized the logic on the majority opinion.
“Bad cases make bad law, but justice is blind. In a more routine felony, the illogic of the majority opinion would be self-evident. If this were any case other than a sex crime, the logic would not hold,” Jones said.
Durham also asserted he was wrongfully denied a new trial, claiming the lead prosecutor in his case suppressed medical evidence from his defense attorney.
The appeals court, however, affirmed the previous denial for a new trial because Durham did not show that the lead prosecutor’s nondisclosure of the evidence prejudiced his case.