Sentencing — child pornography

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Sentencing — child pornography

Marginal deterrence is not a basis for imposing a lower sentence in a child pornography case.

“Although Klug does not use the term ‘marginal deterrence,’ see United States v. Beier, 490 F.3d 572, 575 (7th Cir. 2007), he essentially contends that others will not be deterred from producing ‘hard-core’ child pornography because his own sentence would not have been higher even if he had produced child pornography by sexually abusing the boys in his care. But we have explicitly rejected the utility of marginal deterrence in cases involving the production of child pornography. See United States v. Maulding, 627 F.3d 285, 288 (7th Cir. 2010); Beier, 490 F.3d at 575; Newsom, 428 F.3d at 689-90. We explained in Beier that marginal deterrence does not mandate that ‘crimes of different gravity must never be punished the same. It is that punishing two crimes of different gravity the same is unsound when to do so would encourage additional crimes.’ Beier, 490 F.3d at 575. The theory of marginal deterrence does not aid defendants like Klug who produce child pornography because ‘child pornographers who molest the children whom they photograph can be punished separately for molestation.’ Id. Thus, even though the young victims in this case were not physically molested in the process of the production of the child pornography, we do not conclude that the sentence imposed was unreasonable in light of all of the evidence presented to and properly considered by the district court.”

Affirmed.

11-1339 U.S. v. Klug

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Reagan, J., Tinder, J.