How Appealing and Jonathan Adler at The Volohk Conspirary both posted about a notable new Sixth Circut panel opinion in US v. Phillips, No. 21-5762 (6th Cir. Nov. 28, 2022) (available here). Here is how the majority opinion, which runs 17 pages, gets started:
When it passed the PROTECT Act in 2003, Congress required the United States Sentencing Commission to vary penalties for child-pornography offenses depending on the number of images involved. The Commission accordingly implemented that method of calculating penalties in the Sentencing Guidelines. Addressing what it perceived to be an ambiguity in Congress’s command, the Commission added an application note in the Guidelines commentary instructing courts to equate one video to seventy-five images when calculating the applicable Guidelines sentencing range.
For almost twenty years, courts have relied on this “75:1 Rule” when sentencing defendants convicted of possessing videos containing child pornography. Recent Supreme Court precedent, however, has clarified when courts can defer to an...
