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"Judges seek flexibility in child porn cases"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this new article in USA Today discussing a facet of post-Booker federal sentencing well-known to regular readers of this blog.  Here are excerpts: People convicted of possessing child pornography are getting support from an unexpected source: federal judges.  In hearings across the country, defense attorneys and federal judges are asking the U.S. Sentencing Commission to allow judges greater flexibility to give lighter sentences for possession of child pornography when no other crime is involved.... Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, says judges already give sentences that are lighter than the guidelines.  He says they sometimes minimize the crimes by not examining the pornography involved and are too often swayed by defendants who appear before them and do not match society's stereotypes of people who look at child porn...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on December 23, 2009 (boomark / email).