A mandatory five-year minimum sentence for the distribution of child pornography doesn’t come close to violating the Eighth Amendment’s shield against cruel and unusual punishment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held Thursday in a decision that takes Eastern District Senior Judge Jack Weinstein (See Profile) to task for imposing an inappropriately lenient sentence.
The circuit unanimously reversed Weinstein, who had refused to impose the statutorily required penalty on an “immature” 19-year-old defendant. It said Weinstein wrongly sentenced the offender, who was part of an Internet community in which child pornography files were automatically shared among members, to 30 months rather than a term in the five-to-20-year range prescribed by Congress.
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