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1 1 (Updated April 7, 2025)

handle is hein.crs/cglcrtwcr0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional _ * Res'earch Service a Congressional Court Watcher: Circuit Splits from February 2025 Updated April 7, 2025 The U.S. Courts of Appeals for the thirteen circuits issue thousands of precedential decisions each year. Because relatively few of these decisions are ultimately reviewed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals are often the last word on consequential legal questions. The federal appellate courts sometimes reach different conclusions on the same issue of federal law, causing a split among the circuits that leads to the non-uniform application of federal law among similarly situated litigants. This Legal Sidebar discusses circuit splits that emerged or widened following decisions from the last month on matters relevant to Congress. The Sidebar does not address every circuit split that developed or widened during this period. Selected cases typically involve judicial disagreement over the interpretation or validity of federal statutes and regulations, or constitutional issues relevant to Congress's lawmaking and oversight functions. The Sidebar only includes cases where an appellate court's controlling opinion recognizes a split among the circuits on a key legal issue resolved in the opinion. This Sidebar refers to each U.S. Court of Appeals by its number or descriptor (e.g., D.C. Circuit for U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit). Some cases identified in this Sidebar, or the legal questions they address, are examined in other CRS general distribution products. Members of Congress and congressional staff may click here to subscribe to the CRSLegal Update and receive regular notifications of new products and upcoming seminars by CRS attorneys. • Criminal Law & Procedure: The Third Circuit rejected a criminal defendant's facial and as-applied constitutional challenges to his international sex tourism conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 2423(c) (barring U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents from engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign countries). The panel held that Section 2423(c) was a lawful exercise of Congress's power under the Foreign Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. In so doing, the panel disagreed with the Sixth Circuit and joined the majority of reviewing circuit courts in ruling that the Constitution grants Congress more expansive power to regulate foreign commerce than interstate commerce. Still, the Third Circuit held that the defendant's convictions would be constitutionally permissible even under the standard employed in interstate commerce cases, because although Section 2423(c) as applied to the defendant involved noncommercial conduct, Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11280 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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