*The Supreme Court has rejected R. Kelly’s appeal regarding his 2022 convictions for child pornography and enticement.
We reported previously via CNN that Kelly – who is currently serving a more than 30-year prison sentence in North Carolina – petitioned the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of his federal sex crimes convictions.
The disgraced R&B singer’s defense attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, filed a petition to the US Supreme Court, requesting to throw out his Chicago conviction for possession of child pornography and enticing minors to engage in sexual activity, claiming that the charges should be barred by the statute of limitations.
In the petition, Bonjean argues that the musician was wrongly retroactively prosecuted under a federal law – the PROTECT Act – which passed in 2003 and made the statute of limitations indefinite for sex crimes with minors.
“Consistent with the well-established presumption against retroactive legislation, the 2003 amendment is inapplicable to the charged conduct as is any subsequent amendments to [the minor sex offense law],” Kelly argued in his petition to the Supreme Court, citing prior relevant cases, per Courthouse News Service. “It is axiomatic that ‘criminal limitations statutes are ‘to be liberally interpreted in favor of repose.’ This court has explained that the aversion to retroactive rulemaking is deeply rooted in our jurisprudence and embodies a legal doctrine centuries older than our republic.”
R. Kelly was already serving a 30-year sentence for sex trafficking, stemming from his 2021 New York case, at the time he was convicted of child pornography in Chicago for which he was sentenced to 20 years in 2023. He is also appealing the New York conviction, though that case is not part of the high court petition.
On Monday, the high court declined to hear Kelly’s case on appeal from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The disgraced R&B artist has now exhausted all direct avenues for appealing the verdict.
“The law does not support Kelly’s position,” U.S. Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote for the court’s unanimous opinion, per Courthouse News Service. “As a threshold matter, it is not unconstitutional to apply a newer statute of limitations to old conduct when the defendant was subject to prosecution at the time of the change, as Kelly was in 2003. Similarly situated defendants have argued the Constitution’s prohibition on retroactive punishment bars this sort of change — without success.”
READ MORE FROM EURWEB.COM: R. Kelly Petitions US Supreme Court to Overturn Sex Crimes Convictions Based on Statute of Limitations
