3rd Circuit upholds child porn sentence reduction, discusses criticism of sentencing guidelines
United States v. Grober, No 09-1318 (3rd Cir. Oct. 26, 2010)
A Third Circuit panel (2-1, Judge Maryanne Trump Barr writing the opinion) held that U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden did not abuse her discretion in reducing a 235 month sentence for receiving and distributing child pornography and possessing child pornography to 60 months. According to the court, Judge Hayden “provided a sufficiently compelling justification for not applying the sentencing range recommended by § 2G2.2″ of the sentencing guidelines. The opinion discusses at length Hayden’s rationale, including her reference to the the Sentencing Commission’s Report of October 2009.
As Shannon P. Duffy points out at Law.com, Judge Barr also cited the Second Circuit’s recent ruling in United States v. Dorvee, No. 09-0648-cr (2nd Cir. Aug. 4, 2010) (see pg. 24 of the opinion) which held that that a “233-month within-Guidelines sentence for the distribution of child pornography was both procedurally unreasonable (on grounds not relevant here) and substantively unreasonable because it was ‘manifestly unjust.’”
Judge Thomas M. Hardiman dissented (see pg. 32), arguing:
[I]it is . . . wrong for a sentencing court to: (1) categorically reject the validity of a Guideline by impugning generally the plea bargaining system; (2) punish a party for failing to present ‘evidence’ it never should have presented in the first place; (3) mischaracterize a defendant’s crimes of conviction; and (4) use a categorical rejection of a Guideline as a proxy for ignoring some of the relevant § 3553(a) factors.
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Appeals Courts Criticize Child Porn Sentencing Guidelines
Shannon P. Duffy, The Legal Intelligencer, 10.28.2010
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