Opinion ID: 2998764
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court Was Correct to Sentence

Text: McCaffrey under the Trafficking Guideline instead of the Possession Guideline. Whether a district court judge sentenced the defen- dant under the correct guideline is a question of the application of law to fact and is reviewed de novo. Turner, 400 F.3d at 500. McCaffrey points to decisions from two sister circuits holding that end users of child pornography should be sentenced only under the more lenient possession guideline, § 2G2.4, and that the harsher trafficking guideline, § 2G2.2, should be reserved for those who distribute material, despite the fact that the language of the trafficking guideline states that “receiving” the material via interstate transmission is sufficient to warrant the more severe trafficking penalty. See United States v. Farrelly, 389 F.3d 649, 652 (6th Cir. 2004) (consumer of child pornography should be sentenced under § 2.2G2.4); United States v. Davidson, 360 F.3d 1374, 1377 (11th Cir. 2004) (same). As 8 No. 03-2189 an initial matter, the November 2004 revision of the Guidelines Manual, which deleted § 2G2.4 by consolidation with § 2G2.2, may have affected the precedential value of those cases.3 At any rate, this revision effects no change in the law of this circuit, as even before the revision, we consistently held that a defendant who receives child pornography through interstate commerce must be sentenced under the trafficking guideline rather than the possession guideline, even in the absence of evidence of distribution or intent to distribute. United States v. Myers, 355 F.3d 1040 (7th Cir. 2004); United States v. Malik, 385 F.3d 758 (7th Cir. 2004). McCaffrey’s entire argument is that this court should revisit and reject the rule adopted by two of its own panels in favor of the interpretation preferred in the Eleventh Circuit, which found that the trafficking statute applied only to those who disseminated the illegal materials, and not to those who were solely the end consumers. In contrast, we have previously held that because the trafficking statute explicitly encompasses receipt of materials, end consumers who purchase material for their own use fall within its bounds. Id. We see no need to revisit the holding here. The district court did not err when it sentenced McCaffrey under § 2.2G2, the harsher trafficking guideline. 3 The Sixth Circuit recently repudiated its decision in Farrelly because of the revised guideline. United States v. Williams, 411 F.3d 675, 678 n. 1 (6th Cir. 2005). No. 03-2189 9 C. The District Court’s Sentence Was Reasonable in Light of Booker, and No Remand Is Necessary under Paladino. McCaffrey also contends that the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005), necessitates resentencing because his sentence was increased on the basis of facts not proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt or admitted by him. Notwithstanding McCaffrey’s arguments to the contrary, Booker does not stand for a defendant’s right to have every element of every sentence enhancement proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt; rather, it transformed the Federal Sentencing Guidelines from a mandatory framework to an advisory one. Booker, 125 S. Ct. at 738. Because McCaffrey raises this contention for the first time on appeal, our review is for plain error. United States v. Lee, 399 F.3d 864 (7th Cir. 2005). “In order to show plain error the defendant must establish, among other things, that the error ‘affected substantial rights’—which is to say that it made the defendant worse off.” Id. In order to answer that question, we ask whether the sentencing judge, operating under the discretion permitted by Booker, might have sentenced McCaffrey any differently. If we can be certain that he would have imposed the same sentence given greater freedom, then no error was committed, and no remand for resentencing is required. Id. In this case, there is no doubt that the district court was inclined to sentence McCaffrey to the longest possible prison term. The guidelines formula, with its multiple enhancements and upward departures, resulted in a sentencing range of 360 months to life. As he could not sentence McCaffrey to more than 5 years for possession and 15 years for trafficking, the judge sought to impose consecu- tive sentences and asked the government for supplemental authority regarding his power to do so. Upon receiving the 10 No. 03-2189 government’s supplemental filing, the judge amended his original sentencing order to provide that the sentences should be consecutive. In amending his original sentencing order, the judge explicitly stated that he was imposing the maximum sentence of consecutive terms of 180 months and then 60 months in order “to produce a combined sentence that is as near as possible to the total punishment allowed under the statute,” i.e., 360 months to life. Transcript of Resentencing at 5, McCaffrey (No. 02 CR 591) (Feb. 6, 2004). Thus, there is no question about what the judge would have done had he known the guidelines were advisory; he would have put McCaffrey away for as long as he could. An indication of how strongly the judge felt about the severity of McCaffrey’s conduct can be found in the judge’s com- ments at the sentencing hearing: I had the opportunity to hear these [victims] speak, and their testimony was as stark and as tragic and as horrifying as anything I’ve heard in a courtroom. . . . [T]he defendant paid for a membership to receive photographs of children being molested, abused, and otherwise sexually exploited; in so doing, the defendant supported that conduct and supported the people that inflict that kind of conduct on young children . . . McCaffrey did this to fulfill his own sexual needs. . . . Vincent McCaffrey committed these acts which were a serious violation of the trust of a child, and he took from these children maybe a child’s most precious attribute, innocence. Transcript of Sentencing Hearing at 17, 40, McCaffrey (No. 02 CR 591) (Jan. 30, 2003). Under the circumstances here, it is not necessary to remand the case under Paladino and Lee. No. 03-2189 11