You may remember that, back in April 2017, the Second Circuit vacated a 225-month sentence for a person convicted of the possession and transportation of child pornography as “shockingly high.” In Jenkins I, the Circuit wrote an extensive opinion, chock-full of quotable portions for sentencing memos and appeals, about why the child pornography guidelines can produce “unreasonable results.”
On remand, however, the district court resentenced Mr. Jenkins to 200 months of imprisonment – still an exceedingly long sentence for a first conviction.
On Friday, the Circuit reversed again, this time sending the case to a new district judge. Although Jenkins II is a summary order, it still has potentially useful language about why it is error for a district court to rely on studies or statistics about people convicted of child pornography offenses as a reason to believe that a particular person committed a prior “undetected” offense. As the Circuit wrote, if judges could just assume people have committed prior offenses based on statistics, there would be “no more first-time offenders.”
Here’s hoping that, for Mr. Jenkins, the third sentencing will be the charm.
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