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Sentencing Guidelines

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 30, 2023//

Sentencing Guidelines

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//January 30, 2023//

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Benny Butler

Case No.: 21-2297

Officials: Sykes, Chief Judge, and Brennan and Scudder, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Sentencing Guidelines

Benny Butler downloaded, distributed, and shared a vast amount of child pornography via internet chat rooms catering to this trade. After tracking him online for several weeks, investigators obtained a search warrant and seized ten electronic devices from his home. Forensic review of the devices revealed more than 10,000 images and videos of child pornography. Much of this material involved very young children—including babies—and some depicted sadistic and masochistic content. Butler pleaded guilty to a single count of transporting child pornography using a means of interstate commerce. The district judge imposed a prison sentence of 188 months, the bottom of the properly calculated Sentencing Guidelines range.

Butler contends without elaboration that the judge did not adequately consider his “background and mitigating circumstances” and that a lower sentence was warranted “in light of his background and mitigating circumstances.”

The Seventh Circuit ruled that to the extent that the appeal purports to challenge the sentence as substantively unreasonable, it is undeveloped and frivolous. A within-Guidelines sentence is presumptively reasonable.

Affirmed.

Decided 01/24/23

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