At a moment when Americans harbor near-historic levels of distrust in government, it just makes good sense to let jurors know about their already established power to exercise discretion over bad laws and ill-considered prosecutions, argues J.D. Tuccille. That’s why it’s heartening to find a federal judge declare about a “shocking” prosecution that “this is a case that calls for jury nullification.”
The prosecution that shocked the judge involves Yehudi Manzano, a 30-something man charged with producing and transporting child pornography after saving, and then deleting, a video of his teenage sex partner to and from his own phone and its associated Google cloud account. “The only people who ever saw it were the guy who made it, the girl who was in it, and the federal agents,” Norman Pattis, Manzano’s attorney, told Tuccille. But that, prosecutors say, was enough for the federal government to proceed with charges that Manzano acted “transported and transmitted” child porn via “interstate and foreign commerce.”
The mandatory minimum sentence under federal law for recording video of sex with an underage partner is 15 years, independent of any separate state charges for the actual sex with a minor. “I am absolutely stunned that this case, with a 15-year mandatory minimum, has been brought by the government,” said U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill of the District of Connecticut. “I am going to be allowed no discretion at sentencing to consider the seriousness of this conduct, and it is extremely unfortunate that the power of the government has been used in this way, to what end I’m not sure.”
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