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Glad to see the author agrees with the Sentencing Commission and DOJ that the child porn sentencing guidelines need to be reformed. But this needs to be done far more quickly than waiting for a whole amendment cycle to pass:
It starts as this:
Making child pornography is abuse. What about possessing it? As a group, these offenders—the ones who look but don’t abuse children to create new images—are serving increasingly long prison sentences. In 2004, the average sentence for possessing child pornography was about 4 ½ years. In 2010, it was almost eight years. Child sex offenders may also be kept in prison beyond their release dates through “civil commitment” if the state deems that they’ll have “serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/04/child_pornography_viewers_how_dangerous_are_they.html
It starts as this:
Making child pornography is abuse. What about possessing it? As a group, these offenders—the ones who look but don’t abuse children to create new images—are serving increasingly long prison sentences. In 2004, the average sentence for possessing child pornography was about 4 ½ years. In 2010, it was almost eight years. Child sex offenders may also be kept in prison beyond their release dates through “civil commitment” if the state deems that they’ll have “serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/04/child_pornography_viewers_how_dangerous_are_they.html
the only remark i have on that ( i agree mostly)..is the statement that
By viewing cp they are driving the market for more....
from many cp cases...alot of these pics/videos were made in the 80's & 90's...
where is the "driving the market"????
Biller v State 5D12-2820
http://www.5dca.org/Opinions/Opin2013/032513/5D12-2820.op.pdf
We have discovered a similar thing with my husband's case. He was originally charged with two offenses, and was told that one carried a 20 year penalty. If he pled guilty to the other charge, he could walk away with 2 years probation (and 25 years on the registry). He pled. We are now pretty sure that he would have been facing, at most, 4 years in prison, and the 20 years they threatened him with could have have been applied in his case.
We've been told that that doesn't matter. He pled out, and at that point, there really isn't much recourse.
The charge he pled guilty to was use of a computer to commit a crime, with a maximum penalty of more than two years but less than 4. It's now our understanding that that would be because the underlying charge also carried a maximum penalty of more than two years but less than 4. He was never told this, but was told that, if he went to trial and was found guilty, he would get 20 years in prison. If he had thought he was facing a maximum penalty of 2-4 years in prison, rather than 20, he might have considered going to trial. (And, given how poorly the sting was conducted--in an adult chat room, several meetings set up and now showed up for, no indication other than a couple of times mentioning her age of immaturity (not a single mention, in months of chatting, of her parents, her friends, homework, school, school activities, curfews, or anything), and no corroborating evidence in my husband's chat history or computer records to indicate he was seeking out minors (he had no images of minors and no online interactions with minors other than the one the undercover officer was pretending to be)--we do think he would have had a chance of either not being convicted or, more likely, if we had pushed for a trial, of the prosecutor letting him plead to a misdemeanor and possibly not having to register rather than risk losing at trial, when these sting operations were still bringing in some big money.
But, we're kind of at the point where we know we can't change that. What I'd like to see is Michigan change it's laws so that 1) a list of offenses they decided in the last few years are unexpungable can once again be expunged, 2) first-time non-violent statutory or non-contact offenders are not required to be on a public list, and 3) giving those offenders, if they do not reoffend for 10 years, the chance to petition to be removed from the registry entirely. That would put MI much more in line with states that have saner policies about these crimes. I don't see it happening, but I can hope.