Federal judge thumbs nose at sentencing guidelines, gives child-porn defendant 1 night in jail

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Appalled at the harsh sentencing guidelines for child pornography offenses, a federal judge sentenced an ailing 67-year-old defendant to only one night in jail - and when an appeals court ordered the defendant re-sentenced, the judge imposed the same punishment again. "If I have got to send somebody like Mr. (Richard) Bistline to prison, I'm sorry, someone else will have to do it," said U.S. District Judge James L. Graham of Columbus, Ohio. "I'm not going to do it." [...]

Louisville lawyer Brian Butler, a former federal prosecutor who has represented several defendants in federal cases involving child pornography, said he had never heard of a federal judge defying an appellate order as Graham did. But Butler said, "If there were ever an issue in which that would be justified, it would in in a child porn case, because the sentences are so out of whack." He said he believes the judge was "trying to make a statement - that somebody needs to look at this because it is unconscionable."

source: Article 'Federal judge thumbs nose at sentencing guidelines, gives child-porn defendant 1 night in jail' by Andrew Wolfson; www.courier-journal.com/article/20130628/NEWS10/306280110/Federal-judge-thumbs-nose-sentencing-guidelines-gives-child-porn-defendant-1-night-jail; courier-journal.com; 28 June 2013