A federal court in New York has ordered a man be resentenced after it found the 19-year prison term and conditions of the 25-year post-release supervision he received for possession of child pornography “substantively unreasonable.”
The 2nd District Court ruling came in the case of Joseph Vincent Jenkins, who was sentenced to 225 months in prison, thanks largely to sentence enhancements written into law.
The 2nd Circuit’s decision illustrates the impact of congressional edicts that call for stiff sentencing enhancements based on factors that are routine in child pornography cases. Jenkins’ criminal history was limited to a single misdemeanor, he did not produce or distribute child pornography, and his crimes did not involve contact with minors. Yet U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby calculated that the recommended sentence was 210 to 262 months, thanks mainly to enhancements for using a computer, for possessing more than 600 images (with each video counting as 75 images), for possessing images of prepubescent children, and for possessing images featuring masochistic, sadomasochistic, or other violent content. “These enhancements,” the 2nd Circuit notes, “have caused Jenkins to be treated like an offender who seduced and photographed a child and distributed the photographs and worse than one who raped a child.”
Read more about the case here and here.
Read the decision here.