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  1. #6

    Default Re: I Am in Trouble for Possessing Child Pornography

    Quote Quoting indeepdoodoo
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    Of course I should talk to an attorney. But I am disabled and live on less than a thousand dollars a month. And since I am an offender, not a victim, the chances that I would have access to any free counsel is nil until I get charged and assigned a PD.
    In criminal cases, the victim is only a witness, they don't get or need an attorney - because it's the government's case against you, not the victim's. ONLY offenders have need for counsel in a criminal case.

    AARDVARK appears to be a fine resource for victims, but in this case I am not the victim. So the advice given seems a little skewed.
    Skewed? The federal penalties are very clear; the mandatory minimum for downloading images is five years in prison without parole. If they go after you for distributing under 18 USC 2252 (Protect Our Children Act), it's a 10 year minimum. The guidelines in federal cases are well spelled out, which is one reason why there is often a strong preference to try such cases in federal rather than state court. Visit the website of the United States Sentencing Commission at www.ussc.gov and you can look up the relevent information on federal sentencing for yourself.


    While looking at sentencing grids here: http://www.sgc.wa.gov/sgc/stats/FY20..._SummaryT2.pdf

    It seems to me that in 2006 zero people charged with possession of depictions of minors in explicit situations were sent to prison. So that seems that there was some sort of diversion in place there, right?
    The latest sentincing guidelines for Washington can be found at:

    http://www.sgc.wa.gov/Publications/S...anual_2008.pdf

    You'd need to know the exact statute number that the state is charging you under (if the state and not feds are prosecuting), then figure out your offender score (should be the lowest since you have no priors and the crime didn't involve violence), and from there you find the offense level and look across to find the guideline for sentencing expressed as a number of months. 2008 is the lastest full publication, and the 2009 updates didn't touch on any classes that would apply to your case. That'll tell you what's POSSIBLE, under CURRENT law. But take a look at the table you referenced above. What that table doesn't convey, is that the state prosecutes few of these cases (in 2006, only 50 prosecutions for your state). The trend since 2007 (when a plethora of initiatives and joint task forces were born) is for multi-jurisdictional approaches and federal level prosecution. The feds tend to pass on cases where the federal rules of evidence work against them, rather than in their favor, and let those cases fall to the state (translation: in practical application, the state gets to prosecute the weaker cases). If a distribution charge is on the table, odds are not in your favor for a state-level prosecution.

    You are also looking at 2006 numbers, PRIOR to a lot of legislation, and initiatives like Project Safe Childhood that swung into effect in late 2006, that have come out to crack down on these offenses. Here's the latest published numbers, from 2010:

    http://www.sgc.wa.gov/Publications/S...Sum_FY2010.pdf

    Note that as opposed to 50 cases in 2006, the state only prosecuted 31 total cases of possession in 2010 (and similar lower numbers for 2008 and 2009). That's not because fewer offenders are being apprehended and prosecuted, it's because the feds are taking the brunt of cases into federal court.

    Bottom line is that until you are formally arraigned, know if the prosecution is going to be state or federal (or even BOTH, for different counts) and the exact charges and number of counts are known, it's an academic exercise.

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