Judge Posner and sentencing the 30-year-old virgin

Writing on behalf of the Seventh Circuit, Judge Richard Posner is in fine form with his ruling in US v. McIlrath, No. 07-1266 (7th Cir. Jan. 10, 2008) (available here).  Though McIlrath covers some notable and important post-Booker legal ground in the course of affirming a within-guideline sentence, it is the facts of the case and Judge Posner’s prose that makes McIlrath a must-read.  Here are just a few of many choice passages:

The defendant was 31 years old when he committedthe crime and had no criminal record.   He was a lonerwho had not had sex until the previous year, with awoman who then rejected him, breaking his heart and(he claimed) precipitating the incidents with the 12- and(supposed) 15-year-old girls….

The defendant’s history and characteristics were relevantin possibly suggesting both that imprisonmentwould be a more severe punishment for him than for theaverage Internet sexual predator, which would argue fora lower prison sentence, and that he is less likely to repeathis crime than the average such offender, whichwould also argue for a lower prison sentence.  The firstpoint goes to the retributive (“just punishment”) andgeneral-deterrence factors in section 3553(a), the secondto specific deterrence (to protect the public from furthercrimes by this defendant).  But neither was very persuasive.  As far as we know or the defendant’s lawyer or psychologistattempted to show, the average man who trolls foryoung girls in Internet chat rooms is no better adjustedthan the defendant. It is true that a sexual interest inteenage girls is not abnormal in the sense that pedophiliais; any female of reproductive age is a natural object ofdesire on the part of a male, whether in our species or anyother.  But the 12-year-old girl whom the defendantpropositioned may well have been prepubescent, and heseemed not to care; and given that sex with 12- and 15-year-olds is deemed a very serious crime in our society,especially when the man is much older, a 31-year-old manwho tries to seduce these young teenagers in Internetchat rooms is unlikely to be well adjusted.