Anderegg Case: Seventh Circuit Upholds Dismissal of Part of Indictment

The Anderegg case was the subject of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which on August 25, 2026, upheld the dismissal of one part of the indictment. A three-judge panel ruled that the federal provision 18 U.S.C. § 1466A(b)(1) is unconstitutional under the specific circumstances of the case when applied to the mere private possession of obscene sexual depictions in the home.

However, the verdict is not a general declaration that AI-generated sexual material depicting minors is legal or constitutionally protected in the United States. The court expressly limited its scope to possession of material that, according to the government’s admission, did not depict a real child and could not be linked to a real child.

What the Anderegg case concerns

The case United States v. Anderegg involved, among other things, a charge under § 1466A(b)(1), which penalizes possession of certain obscene visual depictions of minors. The lower court dismissed this part of the indictment, and the appeals court upheld its decision.

The panel proceeded on the basis that no real child was depicted in the images at issue. It relied on U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Stanley v. Georgia and Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. According to the appeals court, it is bound by these precedents as a lower federal court.

The first concerns protection for the private possession of obscene material in the home. The second limited the ability to punish virtual depictions that do not involve real children. The combination of these legal principles was central to the outcome.

Other counts of the indictment remain unaffected

The decision does not concern the entire indictment. The court stated that charges related to the production, distribution, and transmission of material to a person under 16 remained unaffected. The verdict therefore addresses only the narrowly defined question of private possession.

The description of prosecutors’ allegations about the specific creation and sending of images in the decision does not constitute a final finding that these acts occurred. They are allegations stated in the indictment; the other counts of the indictment were unaffected by the decision.

AI complicates the line between virtual and real material

Judge John Lee, in a concurring opinion, warned that generative AI complicates the distinction between virtual material and depictions of real children. He suggested that this area may require further guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court.

This is important because older precedents arose before today’s photorealistic image generators. In the Anderegg case, however, the court did not rule on the general regulation of generative AI, but on the application of a specific provision to a specific type of possession.

The Anderegg case therefore represents a significant but precisely limited verdict for the U.S. debate over synthetic child sexual abuse material. According to the ruling, federal law encounters a constitutional limit in this situation; the decision does not apply to material linked to real victims or to production or distribution.

What to watch next

• It has not been confirmed whether the U.S. Department of Justice will seek review by the full Seventh Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court.
• It will be important to see whether other appeals courts interpret similar federal provisions in the same way.
• An open question is any response by Congress or the Supreme Court to AI images that may be indistinguishable from depictions of real children.

Verified and updated: 08/30/2026 15:38