Millstone Act

Key Points

• The Millstone Act would make the death penalty an available punishment for a wide range of federal crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children, including sex trafficking, child pornography, and selling or buying children.
• The bill dramatically increases penalties for female genital mutilation, jumping from a maximum of 10 years in prison to the possibility of life in prison or death.
• Abusive sexual contact with a minor, currently punishable by doubled prison terms, would become eligible for the death penalty or life imprisonment under this bill.
• If enacted, this would be one of the most significant expansions of death penalty eligibility in decades. The Supreme Court ruled in Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008) that the death penalty for crimes against individuals that do not result in death is unconstitutional, which would pose a major legal challenge to this bill.
• The bill covers coercion and enticement of minors as well as transporting minors across state lines for illegal sexual activity, adding the death penalty on top of existing mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years.