78
Opinion of the Court
difficult to conclude that the word "knowingly" modifies one of the elements in subsections (1)(A) and (2)(A), but not the other.
A final canon of statutory construction supports the reading that the term "knowingly" applies to both elements. Cases such as Ferber, 458 U. S., at 765 ("As with obscenity laws, criminal responsibility may not be imposed without some element of scienter on the part of the defendant"); Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147 (1959); Hamling v. United States, 418 U. S. 87 (1974); and Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U. S. 103, 115 (1990), suggest that a statute completely bereft of a scienter requirement as to the age of the performers would raise serious constitutional doubts. It is therefore incumbent upon us to read the statute to eliminate those doubts so long as such a reading is not plainly contrary to the intent of Congress. Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575 (1988).
For all of the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the term "knowingly" in § 2252 extends both to the sexually explicit nature of the material and to the age of the performers.
As an alternative grounds for upholding the reversal of their convictions, respondents reiterate their constitutional challenge to 18 U. S. C. § 2256. These claims were not encompassed in the question on which this Court granted certiorari, but a prevailing party, without cross-petitioning, is "entitled under our precedents to urge any grounds which would lend support to the judgment below." Dayton Bd. of Ed. v. Brinkman, 433 U. S. 406, 419 (1977). Respondents argue that § 2256 is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad because it makes the age of majority 18, rather than 16 as did the New York statute upheld in New York v. Ferber, supra, and because Congress replaced the term "lewd" with the term "lascivious" in defining illegal exhibition of the genitals of children. We regard these claims as insubstantial,
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