ABA Journal covers the controversies over federal child porn sentences

The June issue of the ABA Journal includes this long article on the debate over federal child porn sentencing.  The article is titled, "A Reluctant Rebellion," and here are some excerpts:

[Judge Lynn] Adelman’s criticism [of the child porn sentencing guidelines] goes to the heart of a much larger struggle in the federal courts over the federal sentencing guidelines that apply to computer-based child pornography offenses. Those guidelines tend to treat even first-time offenders with no history of abusing or exploiting children as seriously as murderers, rapists or child molesters.

Critics say the mandatory and recommended pen­alties for child porn offenses under the guidelines far exceed the seriousness of the crime committed by the typical offender who is swapping and down­loading child porn online with other like-minded in­dividuals in the presumed privacy of his own home.... But prosecutors and activists say the proliferation of child pornography on the Internet is an insidious problem that justifies the taking of extreme measures.

It is a debate that pits polite society’s disgust and revulsion against a judge’s solemn duty to impose a penalty that serves the three main purposes of sentencing: to punish the defendant, protect the public and deter the offender from re-offending.

Child porn cases account for about 2 percent of the entire federal criminal caseload, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, but they make up one of the fastest-growing segments of the federal court docket. The number of new cases filed has grown from a few dozen annually in the late 1990s to more than 2,200 in fiscal 2008, ending Sept. 30. That latest figure represents a 33 percent increase over the 2006 fiscal year, and a doubling in the number of new cases since 2003.

The average sentence has lengthened as well, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. In 1997, child porn offenders (not including those involved in its production) received an average sentence of less than 21 months in prison. In 2007, the same class of offenders received an average sentence of more than 91 months, an average annual increase of more than seven months per offender and a nearly 350 percent increase over the previous decade.

But those same statistics also show that more than one-third of all child porn defendants sentenced for nonproduction-related offenses in 2007 — 351 out of 1,025 offenders — received sentences below the recommended guidelines. And, in the past two years alone, a small but growing number of federal judges have felt strongly enough about the guidelines to register their objections in the form of a written opinion.

Some related federal child porn prosecution and sentencing posts:

• Strong sentencing opinion noting disparities in federal child porn downloading cases
• Yet another notable written opinion in a federal child porn downloading case
• Is there an ivy-leaguer exception to federal child porn charges?
• More examples of sentencing uncertainty surrounding federal child porn cases
• Is there a law student sentencing discount for federal child porn charges?
• Judge Adelman operationalizes deconstructed child porn guidelines
• Another notable child porn sentencing decision
• Another notable sentencing opinion in a child porn downloading case
• Acquitting and downloading some additional USSC priorities
• Thoughtful opinion focused on bad health as the basis for a below-guideline sentence
• Effective review of federal uptick in child-porn prosecutions
• Another puzzling report on federal child porn sentence
• Notable long child porn sentence upheld by split Sixth Circuit