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Sharing Child Porn Over Internet Should Not Invite Stiff Punishments, Some US Lawyers Plead

January 30, 2008 at 12:06 PM Medico Legal News

Taken aback by the aggressive drive of the police against child porn, criminal defence laywers are to seek a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court against awarding stiff mandatory prison terms for those who make available child pornography on file-sharing sites.

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At issue is a new interpretation of a 1986 law, amended in 2003 under the Protect Act, intended to curb child-porn advertising.

Consequent on the amendment, anyone convicted of publishing "notice" offering to distribute kid porn across state lines is liable for a 15-year-term.

Last year, Walter Sewell, a 43-year-old pharmacist from Missouri, was sentenced under the act to the automatic 15-year prison stretch after downloading and sharing sexually explicit images over the Kazaa file-sharing network.

"It's an innovative use of the statute," said Don Ledford, a spokesman for prosecutors in the Western District of Missouri, in Kansas City. "We were the first district in the country to use the statute that way to get the 15-year mandatory minimum."

Kazaa is an open system, meaning the authorities can easily learn a user's identity from his internet protocol address by subpoenaing the internet service provider. In Sewell's case, the FBI made the case.

"Prior to the internet playing such a dominant role among pedophiles and child sexual exploiters, publishing a notice for child pornography might have meant classified advertising or a notice online in a chat room or message board offering to sell child pornography," Ledford continued. "What's innovative here is the Kazaa software itself generates that notice."

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Sharing Child Porn Over Internet Should Not Invite Stiff Punishments, Some US Lawyers Plead

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