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Notable long child porn sentence upheld by split Sixth Circuit

By Douglas A. Berman

The circuits have already issued a number of notable sentence decisions today, but the one that struck me as most blog-worthy is the Sixth Circuit's affirmance of a within-guideline child porn sentence in US v. Paull, No. 07-3482 (6th Cir. Jan. 9, 2009) (available here). This first paragraph of the dissent by Judge Merritt in Paull spotlights some (of many) reasons why the decision is notable (and likely worthy of a serious cert petition): As a recent October 23, 2008, Wall Street Journal article by Amir Efrati points out, our federal legal system has lost its bearings on the subject of computer-based child pornography.  Our ?social revulsion? against these ?misfits? downloading these images is perhaps somewhat more rational than the thousands of witchcraft trials and burnings conducted in Europe and here from the Thirteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries, but it borders on the same thing...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 09, 2009 (boomark / email).