NACDL Asks U.S. Sentencing Commission to Focus on Fraud, Child Porn Guidelines

By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma

In a letter responding to the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s call for comments on its priorities for the upcoming year, Mark Allenbaugh, the chair of the Sentencing Committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, urged the Commission to focus on the guidelines covering fraud and child pornography, two crimes that are frequently prosecuted by the Department of Justice.  As to fraud, NACDL called for a complete overhaul of Guideline 2B1.1 as a way to address the problems created by the loss amount table and “factor creep” — the accrual of multiple enhancements leading to absurdly long Guidelines sentences in many white-collar criminal cases.  As to child pornography, NACDL recommended that the Commission seek emergency amendment authority from Congress to delete Guideline 2G2.2 in light of the Commission’s recent report on child pornography sentencing. The letter noted that the child pornography guidelines are given minimal weight by judges and cause more unwarranted disparity than consistency in child pornography sentencing.  The full letter is available here.