In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Nos. 99-1684, 99-3642 & 99-3767

United States of America,

Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant,

v.

Stanley Wright,

Defendant-Appellant

and

Deniese Watts,

Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 96 CR 290--Ann Claire Williams, Judge.

Argued June 5, 2000--Decided July 7, 2000

 Before Easterbrook, Diane P. Wood, and Evans, Circuit

Judges.

 Easterbrook, Circuit Judge. Of sixteen defendants

indicted for smuggling and distributing heroin,

twelve pleaded guilty and four were tried and

convicted. Two of these four (Stanley Wright and

Deniese Watts) have appealed, and the United

States has taken a cross-appeal concerning

Watts’s sentence. Defendants’ arguments do not

require extended discussion. For example, Wright

contends that the evidence against him is

insufficient because the prosecution’s witnesses

were liars. But such an argument is pointless on

appeal, for the jury determines credibility. The

testimony at issue, though from the mouths of

confessed law-breakers, did not conflict with

other evidence too reliable to disregard, so the

jury could accept it. Watts’s principal claim,

that the prosecutor violated the requirements of

Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), by

withholding favorable evidence, founders on the

fact that the prosecutor orally alerted defense

counsel before trial to the exculpatory evidence.

That defense counsel did not follow up by
obtaining more details can’t be treated as a

constitutional violation by the prosecutor.

(Counsel’s shortcomings might be grounds for

relief if the totality of the representation fell

below the constitutional floor, see Strickland v.

Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), but Watts’s

appellate lawyer sensibly reserved that issue for

potential proceedings under 28 U.S.C. sec.2255.)

 Only one of defendants’ contentions requires

additional comment. Marquis Jones testified that

Deniese Watts’s ex-husband Troy introduced

Stanley Wright as his "enforcer, and he told me--

not in front of Stan, but he had told me that,

you know, he had a couple of murders . . . and

like that on his record." The district judge

immediately told the jury to disregard this

prejudicial statement. At a side bar

conversation, the district judge learned that in

1973 Wright had been convicted of murder, but

that this conviction had been reversed, after

which Wright pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The

judge also learned that before trial Jones had

been instructed not to refer to this conviction.

The judge then stated in open court:

We’re ready to proceed, ladies and gentlemen, and

I told you you should disregard the last remark,

and in addition I wanted to advise you that

Stanley Wright has not been convicted for any

murder, so you should totally disregard it.

Wright contends that he is entitled to a new

trial because the jurors were bound to ignore

this instruction.

 Whatever weaknesses limiting instructions may

have, Wright’s problem is that this was not a

"limiting" instruction at all. The judge did not

tell the jurors to consider the murder for one

purpose but forget about it for other purposes,

nor did she tell them to put Wright’s criminal

record out of mind. Instead the judge told the

jury that Jones’s testimony was false--that

Wright did not have "a couple of murders . . .

and like that on his record." Jurors told that a

witness’s statement is untrue need not engage in

mental struggle to disregard a fact that they

deem important but the law asks them to ignore.

The judge’s actual instruction would be

problematic only if some jurors were tempted to

believe one criminal’s statement to another over

the word of a federal judge. But why would a

juror do that? Perhaps a juror could think that

the witness and the judge were using terms

differently--that the judge was discussing

convictions, while Troy Watts (and thus Marquis

Jones) meant by "record" Wright’s actual deeds.

But Wright does not make such an argument and did

not ask the judge to clarify matters further. All

things considered, the episode did more to help
Wright than to harm him, because it could have

planted seeds of doubt in jurors’ minds. If Jones

testified falsely about Wright’s criminal record,

jurors might ask themselves, how many other tall

tales did Jones tell? Listeners often judge the

veracity of their interlocutors by what is

verifiable. If Jones lied about something that

could be verified (Wright’s criminal record),

maybe he was inventing the rest of his story too.

What matters on appeal, however, is that a

"falsity instruction" is more powerful than a

limiting instruction, see United States v. Smith,

995 F.2d 662, 676 (7th Cir. 1993), and sufficed

to prevent the jury from thinking Wright a

murderer.

 Watts’s offense level under the Sentencing

Guidelines was 38, which with her clean criminal

record produced a presumptive range of 235 to 293

months’ imprisonment. But the district court

sentenced Watts to only 170 months, departing

downward on account of what the judge called

"extraordinary family circumstances." The judge

recognized that "[f]amily ties and

responsibilities . . . are not ordinarily

relevant in determining whether a sentence should

be outside the applicable guideline range."

U.S.S.G. sec.5H1.6; see also 28 U.S.C.

sec.994(e). But "ordinarily" is not "never," see

Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 95-96 (1996),

and the judge believed that Watts’s circumstances

were extraordinary. A clinical psychologist

submitted a report that Joshua Watts, the sevenyear-old son of Deniese and Troy who had a strong

bond with his mother, became "anxious and

depressed as a result of learning that his mother

may possibly not continue to live with him" and

that this anxiety had led to a conflict with a

school classmate and a decrease in academic

performance. After reciting the psychologist’s

main findings, the district judge concluded that

a downward departure is appropriate.

 Although appellate review is deferential, we

think it impossible to say that the clinical

psychologist’s report details anything

"extraordinary" about Deniese Watts’s family ties

and responsibilities. Normal children react

adversely to learning that their parents will be

absent for years on end. Troy has been

incarcerated for some time, and the district

judge found that he "has played little or no role

in Joshua’s life for the last several years." The

prospect of losing his remaining parent is bound

to disturb a child. But this is true of any

normal child. "Imprisoning the mother of a child

for even a short period of time is bound to be a

wrenching experience for the child, but the

guidelines do not contemplate a discount for

parents of children." United States v. Stefonek,

179 F.3d 1030, 1038 (7th Cir. 1999). If the
mundane findings with respect to Joshua justified

a departure, then the norm in sec.5H1.6 would be

subverted, and district courts would be free to

disregard the guidelines when sentencing parents.

See United States v. Carter, 122 F.3d 469, 474-75

(7th Cir. 1997). We held in Stefonek that

circumstances more compelling than Watts’s--

"unrebutted testimony that the learning problems

of [the defendant’s] child will be aggravated by

her absence" (179 F.3d at 1038)--still do not

justify a departure unless the record establishes

not only that the harm "would be greater than the

harm to a normal child" (ibid.) but also that

care from other sources would be unable to

alleviate that harm. Joshua is a normal child;

almost by definition his normal reaction cannot

justify a departure. See also United States v.

Sweeting, 2000 U.S. App. Lexis 8678 (3d Cir. May

3, 2000).

 What is more, nothing in the psychologist’s

report suggests that reducing his mother’s

sentence from 235 months to 170 months would do

the slightest good for Joshua. The psychologist

did not try to assess the difference (if any) to

a seven-year-old child between knowing that his

mother will be gone until he is 19 (a 170-month

sentence less 15% good-time credits) and knowing

that his mother will be gone until he is 24 (a

235-month sentence less credits). Rare is the

youngster who can appreciate the difference

between two months and two years into the future.

We doubt that Joshua’s mental health and

educational prospects could be measurably

improved by knowledge that his mother will be

released when he is 19 rather than five years

later. In either case the parental bond and

support are sundered, and someone other than his

mother must raise the child to maturity. (In

Joshua’s case, that "someone" will be Deniese’s

sister.)

 Reducing a sentence to assist a child’s

development makes most sense when the range is

low to begin with and a small departure allows

the parent to provide continuing care. For

example, a defendant whose offense level is in

Zone B of the sentencing table could be given

probation (or home confinement) rather than

incarceration with only a small downward

departure. See United States v. Galante, 111 F.3d

1029, 1031 (2d Cir. 1997); United States v.

Haversat, 22 F.3d 790, 797-98 (8th Cir. 1994);

United States v. Sclamo, 997 F.2d 970, 972-74

(1st Cir. 1993); United States v. Gaskill, 991

F.2d 82 (3d Cir. 1993); United States v. Alba,

933 F.2d 1117, 1122 (2d Cir. 1991). But taking a

few years off a long sentence is worthless to

children and costly to the program of

proportionate punishment under the guidelines.
Deniese herself would be the sole beneficiary of

this sentence reduction. The only case we could

find approving a family-circumstances reduction

in a sentence that remained hefty is our own

United States v. Owens, 145 F.3d 923, 926, 928-29

(7th Cir. 1998), but in Owens the parties did not

discuss the fact that even after the reduction

the defendant could not assist his family for a

decade. Today we conclude that a downward

departure for extraordinary family circumstances

cannot be justified when, even after reduction,

the sentence is so long that release will come

too late to promote the child’s welfare.

 With respect to Wright the judgment is

affirmed. With respect to Watts the conviction is

affirmed but the sentence is vacated, and the

case is remanded for resentencing within the

range for offense level 38.