WE HAVE been suspicious for some time of laws imposing mandatory minimum sentences. Extending prison time for criminals who abuse children may be more justifiable than mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offences, but it seems that lawmakers were not particularly careful when, in the 1990s, they sat down to compose these tougher laws. A case in point: 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(2), a provision of the federal criminal code prescribing a 10-20 year prison sentence for anyone violating a child-pornography law who has also been convicted previously under state laws “relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor or ward”.
Avondale Lockhart was caught buying child pornography in 2010 and pleaded guilty to the charges. But when his prison sentence was extended from an initial range of 78-97 months to the mandatory minimum of 10 years because he had been convicted years earlier of trying to rape his girlfriend, he cried foul. His prior conviction did not involve “a minor or a ward”, he said, so it...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1L1vKbO
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