United States v. Tso.
No. 24-2081. 9/30/2025. D.N.M. Judge Federico. Sexual Abuse in Indian Country—Statute of Limitations—Categorical Approach Versus Case-Specific Analysis.
September 30, 2025
In 2021, Jane Doe reported to the FBI that Tso sexually abused her in New Mexico within the Navajo Nation. She reported that the abuse occurred between August 1998 and October 2000, when she was about 15 or 16 years old. Doe stated that she had previously reported the sexual abuse to a rape crisis center therapist, but no action was taken. In 2023, Tso was charged in a superseding indictment with sexual abuse in Indian Country in violation of 18 USC §§ 1153, 2242(2)(B), and 2246(2)(C). As relevant here, Tso challenged the applicability of 18 USC § 3283, the extended statute of limitations for sexual offenses against a child under age 18. Tso argued for the district court to apply the categorical approach to find that his offense of conviction did not “necessarily entail” the abuse of a minor and moved to dismiss the superseding indictment as time-barred by the five-year statute of limitations for noncapital offenses under 18 USC § 3282. The district court found that the categorical approach was not applicable to its analysis and denied the motion. Tso later entered a conditional guilty plea to a one-count information charging him with the lesser offense of abusive sexual contact in Indian Country, and he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment.
On appeal, Tso argued that the district court erroneously denied his motion to dismiss the superseding indictment because the applicable statute of limitations expired before he was indicted. Tso did not challenge the retroactive application of § 3283’s extended statute of limitations. The Tenth Circuit examined whether the categorical approach or a case-specific analysis applies when determining whether § 3283’s statute of limitations applies to a charge under §§ 2242 and 2244. So far, the categorical approach has been limited almost exclusively to the post-conviction contexts of criminal sentencing and immigration deportation cases as a standardized method of classifying prior convictions for sentencing enhancements or deportation purposes. It is an elements-based analysis under which a court looks only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense and does not inquire into the offender’s specific conduct. Section 3283 states: “[n]o statute of limitations that would otherwise preclude prosecution for an offense involving the sexual or physical abuse, or kidnaping, of a child under the age of 18 years shall preclude such prosecution during the life of the child, or for ten years after the offense, whichever is longer.” Tso maintained that the term “involving” mandates the categorical approach and that the offense at issue must necessarily entail that conduct. Thus, using the categorical approach, Tso asserted that his charged offense does not involve or necessarily entail the sexual abuse of a minor, so § 3283’s extended statute of limitations cannot apply to his charge. While the language “involving” could be consistent with using the categorical approach, the Supreme Court has never stated that a statute using the word “involving” or “involve” always requires application of the categorical approach. And in United States v. Clay, 145 F.4th 1181 (10th Cir. 2025), the Tenth Circuit rejected the argument that the word “involving” requires the categorical approach when determining whether a criminal defendant is “accused of a sexual assault” to allow admission of certain evidence under Fed. R. Evid. 413. Construing § 3283’s plain language and noting Congress’s clear legislative trend to expand the statute of limitations to prosecute child sex crimes, the Tenth Circuit declined to expand the use of the categorical approach to the pretrial, preconviction stage. Rather, a case-specific approach must be applied to a § 3283 challenge with a focus on the charges. Here, Doe was under age 18 when Tso sexually abused her, so Tso was charged with an offense that squarely falls within § 3283’s statute of limitations. Accordingly, the district court properly denied Tso’s motion to dismiss the superseding indictment.
The order was affirmed.