U.S. v. C.R., 09–CR–155.
Decision Date | 16 May 2011 |
Docket Number | No. 09–CR–155.,09–CR–155. |
Parties | UNITED STATES of Americav.C.R., Defendant. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, By: Ali Kazemi Chantel Febus, for the Government.
Deirdre Von Dornum, Federal Defenders of New York, Louis Freeman, Freeman, Nooter & Ginsberg, New York, NY, Sam Talkin, Talkin, Muccigrusso & Roberts, L.L.P., New York, NY, for Defendant C.R.
I. Introduction
Defendant, C.R., pled guilty to “distribution” of child pornography he had obtained using a computer. Others shared his still and video images through a networking program. Access to the pictures he acquired were alleged to constitute electronic “distribution” of child pornography. See 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2).
As indicated in Part II.D.iii, based upon defendant's allocution, he has not committed acts necessary to establish the crime charged. The guilty plea would not have been accepted if not for the strong urging of defendant and his counsel.
Defendant was nineteen years old at the time of the offense. He started using computers to view this material when he was fifteen.
C.R. is subject to a statutory minimum prison sentence of five-years, with a maximum of twenty years, and a Guidelines range of 63–78 months. There also must be imposed what may amount to lifetime control on defendant as a sex offender. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 16911, 16915(a)(1) ( ); § 16915(b) ( ); N.Y. Corr. Law § 168–h(1) ( ).
As applied to this defendant and this case, the statutory minimum five-year sentence of imprisonment is unconstitutional. It is cruel and unusual. See Part III.B.v, infra. The Guidelines sentence is excessive.
Imposed is a thirty-month sentence for intensive medical treatment in prison. This will be followed by long-term post-prison curative therapy and strict control for many years under supervised release by the court's probation service. See Part IV, infra. Society will be best protected by this regimen rather than by a longer term of imprisonment; C.R. should be prepared to assume a useful law-abiding life rather than one of a broken and dangerous, ex-prisoner deviant. Were it not for Congress's strongly expressed preference for incarceration in these cases, the court would have imposed a long-term of supervised release with medical treatment outside of prison.
Further general or specific deterrence is not required. The adult who abused the child in one of the abhorrent known victim child pornography video series found on defendant's computer was sentenced to fifty years in prison. Another adult who stalked and harassed this child with pictures of her abuse was sentenced to twenty years in prison. See Part II.F.ii.c, infra.
This case illustrates some of the troubling problems in sentencing adolescents who download child pornography on a file-sharing computer service. Posed is the question: To protect the public and the abused children who are shown in a sexually explicit manner in computer images, do we need to destroy defendants like C.R.?
Widely shown video images are involved. While “[a]ny social problem that exists at the intersection of adolescence, sex, technology, and criminal law compels strong reactions from all sides ... it often results in sensationalism and oversimplification of complex and multifaceted issues making it more difficult to discuss the problem rationally and productively.” Mary G. Leary, Sexting or Self–Produced Child Pornography? The Dialogue Continues—Structured Prosecutorial Discretion within a Multidisciplinary Response. 17 Va. J. Soc. Pol'y. & L. 486, 487–88 (2010). Sexual development is complex and subtle. It varies widely with the...
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