International Law

Wired reports on a novel use of the US Protect Act that is being appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court:

Criminal defense lawyers say they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a novel legal approach the government has begun using to win stiff mandatory prison terms for those who've downloaded child pornography from file-sharing sites.

At issue is a new interpretation of  a  1986 law, amended in 2003 under the Protect Act, intended to curb child-porn advertising by imposing a mandatory 15-year prison term on anyone convicted of publishing "notice" offering to distribute kid porn across state lines.

Last year, Walter Sewell, a 43-year-old pharmacist from Missouri, was sentenced under the act to the automatic 15-year prison stretch after downloading and sharing sexually explicit images over the Kazaa file-sharing network. He was the nation's first defendant to be prosecuted under what authorities admit is an "innovative use" of the Protect Act.

"He's getting more time than people actually molesting kids," says Eric Chase, a California attorney representing Sewell. "He didn't make it. He didn't sell it. He didn't even buy it."

Last year a jury found that Sewell downloaded thousands of images of child pornography using Kazaa and made them available to others from his share folder. Chase conceded that his client is guilty of distributing child pornography, which normally carries a five-year sentence.

But he argues that sharing such files over Kazaa shouldn't qualify as advertising under the law, and therefore shouldn't be subject to the mandatory 15 years.

Read more here.