First, the Court held that the distribution-of-pornography enhancement in U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1(b)(3) applies even when the defendant creates an illicit image of a minor and shares it only with the victim.
But the second part of the opinion has some great language about improperly imposing a higher sentence because the defendant exercised the right to trial. Here are some highlights:
- The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that “[t]o punish a person because he has done what the law plainly allows him to do is a due process violation ‘of the most basic sort.’” We have consistently echoed this principle, including in the context where a district court withholds a reduction for acceptance of responsibility.
- Taken together, these decisions reflect the fundamental principle that for “an agent of the State to pursue a course of action whose objective is to penalize a person’s reliance on his legal rights is patently unconstitutional.
- The district court’s statements run headlong into our precedent “that a judge cannot rely upon the fact that a defendant refuses to plead guilty and insists on his right to trial as the basis for denying an acceptance of responsibility adjustment.
- Enhancing a sentence solely because a defendant chooses to go to trial risks chilling future criminal defendants from exercising their constitutional rights. And imposing a penalty for asserting a constitutional right heightens the risk that future defendants will plead guilty not to accept responsibility, but to escape the sentencing court’s wrath. Although most federal criminal cases result in guilty pleas,4 the Sixth Amendment right to trial remains an important safeguard to defendants who insist on their innocence. Permitting courts to impose harsher sentences on those few defendants who do go to trial could in practice restrict the exercise of the right to those with unusual risk tolerance—or uncommon courage.
