Arizona prosecutor drops child-porn charges after convictions(!) to avoid “disproportionate” sentence

A helpful reader sent me this interesting article from Arizona describing a case in which a local prosecutor has dropped numerous child-porn charges “in the interest of justice” — after a conviction was obtained on these charges!  Here are the particulars:

Mesa jurors found a defendant guilty on nine counts of child-pornography charges, setting him up for a potential 90-year sentence under Arizona’s tough dangerous-crimes-against-children law. But, in a rare move, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office urged a Superior Court judge to drop five counts, leading instead to a 40-year sentence handed down Oct. 5 for Todd Robert Laughlin.

Laughlin, 46, was convicted of possessing three movies and six computer images depicting children performing sex acts.  A motion filed by prosecutor Ronald M. DeBrigida Jr. noted that jurors found Laughlin guilty of all nine counts Aug. 21, but asked Judge Helene Abrams to dismiss five counts, saying that it was “in the interests of justice.”  He offered no further explanation.

Deputy County Attorney Daniel Strange prosecuted Laughlin, but the motion was filed by DeBrigida, a supervisor in the office.  Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas was unavailable for an interview but released a statement. “Upon further review of the facts in this case, I concluded that the mandatory 90-year sentence facing the defendant was disproportionate to the offenses he was convicted of,” Thomas’ statement said. “As a result, our office exercised its prosecutorial discretion in dismissing five of the criminal counts, so that the mandatory sentence now will be 40 years in prison,” it said.

Barnett Lotstein, one of Thomas’ top assistants, said his office tried Laughlin on nine counts to prove a pattern of child pornography, removing any possible defense that he accidentally accessed child pornography on the Internet. “It’s not uncommon to look at a case again and re-evaluate it,” Lotstein said. “He (Thomas) is not being soft. Forty years is a harsh sentence. Murderers serve 25 years.”

Regular readers will recall that similar stacked child-porn charges against a former Phoenix high school teacher, Morton Berger, ultimately led to Berger receiving a 200-year prison sentence (basics here, commentary here and here).  Though the Supreme Court denied cert in Berger (details here and here), Mr. Berger likely has a habeas claim in the works; the statements from the prosecutors in this other case should provide some help for his sentencing claims.