Split Second Circuit panel declares within-guideline child porn possession sentence of 225 months “substantively unreasonable”

A dozen years after Booker, the reversal of any federal sentence as substantively unreasonable is still quite rare and notable. Today, a Second Circuit panel has issued such a rare and notable decision in US v. Jenkinss, No. 14-4295 (2d Cir. April 17, 2017) (available here). Here are excerpts from the start and heart of the majority opinion:

A jury found Joseph Vincent Jenkins guilty of one count of possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B) and one count of transportation of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(1), based on the government’s proof at trial that Jenkins owned a collection of child pornography and brought it across the U.S.-Canada border on the way to a family vacation for his personal viewing.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Glenn T. Suddaby, Chief Judge) imposed concurrent sentences of 120 months for the possession count, the statutory maximum, and 225 months for the transportation count, just below the statutory maximum of 240 months. The court also imposed a term of 25 years of supervised release. Jenkins challenges his conviction and the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentence….

Here, § 2G2.2 yielded a sentence that derived substantially from “outdated” enhancements related to Jenkins’s collecting behavior.  Meanwhile, the government has not alleged that he was involved in the production or distribution of child pornography or that he was involved in any child pornography community.  In particular, the government did not claim he used peer-to-peer sharing software, distributed images, or participated in chat rooms devoted to child pornography.  Nor does the government allege that he contacted or attempted to contact a child or that he engaged in any “sexually dangerous behavior” separate from his crimes of conviction.  Thus, here, as in Dorvee, § 2G2.2 cannot “bear the weight assigned it” because the cumulation of repetitive, all-but-inherent, enhancements yielded, and the district court applied, a Guideline range that failed to distinguish between Jenkins’s conduct and other offenders whose conduct was far worse.  Cavera, 550 F.3d at 191. It was substantively unreasonable for the district court to have applied the § 2G2.2 enhancements in a way that placed Jenkins at the top of the range with the very worst offenders where he did not belong.

The full majority opinion in Jenkins has lots of substantive sentencing review discussion that defies easy summary and that merits review by anyone deeply engaged in post-Booker sentencing and appeals.  In addition, Judge Kearse has a small dissenting opinion which highlights the defendant’s aggressive disagreement with his prosecution and concludes this way:

Given this record in which Jenkins, inter alia, disputed any justification or authority for prosecuting him, and argued that instead the children who were victims of the child pornography should have been prosecuted, the district court’s concern for the likelihood that, without a lengthy prison term, Jenkins would re-offend was not unreasonable, and I cannot conclude that the imposition of the prison term that was no higher than midway between the top and bottom of the Guidelines range “cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.”