Focusing on Brooklyn federal district judge Jack Weinstein's efforts at challenging the severity of punishments in cases involving the simple possession of child pornography, this New York Times, 5/22/10, "Judge Weinstein Takes On Child Pornography Laws" piece highlights the increasing number of federal jurists who believe changes in federal sentencing laws in child pornography cases have gone too far in increasing the mandatory minimums and sentencing guidelines:
There is little public sympathy for collectors of child pornography. Yet across the country, an increasing number of federal judges have come to their defense, criticizing changes to sentencing laws that have effectively quadrupled their average prison term over the last decade.
Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated a 20-year child pornography sentence by ruling that the sentencing guidelines for such cases, “unless applied with great care, can lead to unreasonable sentences.” The decision noted that the recommended sentences for looking at pictures of children being sexually abused sometimes eclipse those for actually sexually abusing a child.
Judge Weinstein has gone to extraordinary lengths to challenge the strict punishments, issuing a series of rulings that directly attack the mandatory five-year prison sentence faced by defendants charged with receiving child pornography.
“I don’t approve of child pornography, obviously,” he said in an interview this week. But, he also said, he does not believe that those who view the images, as opposed to producing or selling them, present a threat to children.
“We’re destroying lives unnecessarily,” he said. “At the most, they should be receiving treatment and supervision.”
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“What has caused concern in courts across the nation is that we have a lot of relatively law-abiding individuals sitting in the basement downloading the wrong kind of dirty pictures facing not just prison sentences but incredibly long prison sentences,” said Douglas A. Berman, a professor at Moritz College of Law of Ohio State University, who studies sentencing issues.
In one recent case, James L. Graham, a United States District Court judge in Ohio, sentenced a 67-year-old man who had suffered a stroke to a single day in prison, along with restrictions on computer use and registration as a sex offender. As part of a deal with prosecutors, the man had pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography, which carries no mandatory sentence.
“When you have to sit there on the bench and look at someone like my stroke victim and say, ‘I have to send this man to prison for six years,’ it just doesn’t feel right,” he explained in an interview. “It’s not right.”
Here are U.S. Attorney's press releases on recent child pornography sentences in the EDCA:
Bakersfield Man Sentenced to 10 Years, 1 Month For Receiving Child Porn
Placer County Man Sentenced to 20 Years For Transporting Child Porn
Amateur Photographer Sentenced to 15 Years, 8 Months For Producing Child Porn
Sacramento Man Sentenced to 78 Months For Possessing Child Porn
Stockton Man Sentenced to 60 Months For Receiving Child Porn
Manteca Man Sentenced to 15 Years For Receiving Child Porn [Added 5/26/10]
Lemoore Man Sentenced to 15 Years For Receiving and Distributing Child Porn [Added 5/26/10]
Bakersfield Man Sentenced to 19 Years For Distributing And Producing Child Porn [Added 5/31/10]