What John Grisham Got Right About Child Pornography

Last week, as
Elizabeth Nolan Brown
noted here, best-selling novelist John Grisham got into hot
water by suggesting there might be such a thing as an excessively
long sentence for someone convicted of possessing child
pornography. In a Time essay that went up today, I explain
why Grisham was right. Here is how the piece starts:

Last week John Grisham, the best-selling author of legal
thrillers, triggered a storm of online criticism by
arguing in an interview with The
Telegraph that criminal penalties for possessing child
pornography are unreasonably harsh. Grisham, who has
since apologized, spoke rather loosely, overstating the extent
to which honest mistakes account for child porn convictions and the
extent to which those convictions expand the prison population.

But he was right on two important points: People who
download child pornography are not necessarily child molesters, and
whatever harm they cause by looking at forbidden pictures does not
justify the penalties they often receive.

Read the
whole thing.