Legal News

Nearly Half of Child Porn Viewers Getting Break on Prison Time

By Amir Efrati

Back in 2008, there were two things that surprised us about Justice Department press releases touting child pornography prosecutions.

First, we saw new releases nearly every day, reflecting the importance DOJ was placing on this issue. Second, the prison sentences were long: 10, 15 or 20 years wasn’t unusual, and those were penalties for people who downloaded — but didn’t themselves create — the illicit material.

We decided to look into the matter, resulting in this WSJ piece about how a handful of judges were starting to rebel against imposing long sentences that recommended by federal sentencing guidelines. As long as these individuals didn’t actually molest children, the judges said, their punishment shouldn’t be greater than some child molesters and other violent criminals. (The judges were aided in part by this research from Troy Stabenow, a federal defender in Missouri.)

Since then, the movement has grown. Judges have spoken out publicly, and even appellate judges have gotten into the act.

So when we revisited the topic, we found that judges were speaking loudly — this time with their gavels. In the last fiscal year, nearly half of federal judges gave sentences to child-porn viewers that were below the range recommended by the guidelines, a substantial rise from two years earlier. Some defendants are receiving probation. Click here for today’s WSJ story, which includes the full data and some recent examples of leniency.

The trend isn’t going unnoticed among advocates for child-abuse victims. “What they’re doing is trivializing the crime,” says Ernie Allen, who leads a national group that helps law enforcement catch child pornography offenders. “It's a serious crime that warrants a serious penalty.”

The split among the judiciary on child-porn sentencing means that someone who receives a prison term of several years in one court could be get a decades-long sentence in a different court.

Last month, J. Randal Hall, a federal judge in Augusta, Ga., sentenced a child-porn viewer to 20 years in prison. There was no evidence that the defendant, Roger Gambrel, who is in his mid-50s, physically abused children, says his lawyer, Jacque Hawk.

“This amounted to a death sentence,” Mr. Hawk says.

Photo credit: Getty

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 20, 2010 (boomark / email).