Opinion ID: 149121
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Contradictory Sentencing Rationales

Text: The government last argues that the district court's re-sentencing rationale contradicts what it said during the original sentencing in two ways. First, it contends that the district court first found Christman's medical and back issues to be unremarkable and unworthy of a variance but, in re-sentencing, found them to be extraordinary and a basis for extraordinary lenience, though the facts asserted by Christman were identical. Second, the government argues that, while the court had placed regard for the true victims of child pornography possessionthose children who are severely abused to enable its productionat the center of its rationale during the first sentencing, the victims went unmentioned during the court's reasoning at re-sentencing. First, in Christman's original sentencing in 2005, in which he was sentenced to 57 months in prison, the district court stated that it had considered the history of the defendant, the defendant's significant mental-medical problems, significantly long-term back pain. The Court finds that this factor is not something that should affect sentencing other than a recommendation to a Bureau of Prisons medical facility. (2005 Sent. Tr. at 11.) At the re-sentencing hearing, however, the district court, without further explanation and without different facts or circumstances having been presented by Christman, found that Christman's medical and back issues can be considered when it is presented to an unusual degree, as in this case, under Sentencing Guidelines Section 5H1.4 which is physical condition. (2008 Sent. Tr. at 29.) Additionally, according to the 2005 pre-sentence report, Christman is not severely infirm and confined to his home, except by choice (2005 PSR ¶ 117; 2008 PSR ¶ 124), and he committed all the crimes of conviction from inside his house. Without further explanation to show how the district court so drastically changed its understanding of Christman's back pain, it is impossible to know why this determination was reversed on re-sentencing. While there does not appear to be a clear constitutional or statutory requirement that a court view a defendant consistently, when the court makes such a strong statement as to find that medical and back issues are present in an unusual degree but had previously found the identical issues in the same defendant to be insignificant, a failure to give any explanation is unreasonable. Second, in Christman's original sentencing, the district court articulated the following sentencing rationale: For every bit of child pornography, there is some child who was hurt, tortured, killed, whatever. A lot of these videos that there are child pornography come from places like Brazil where children are kidnapped off the street, raped, killed right on film with the sound and the pictures for people to watch. There's only one way to stop that distribution. We can't stop it at the end where it's made, but we can stop it at the end where it's consumed. And if there aren't any consumers for it, there won't be anyone making it hopefully. And I think that was Congress' intent when it passed these laws, and it's the Court's duty to enforce it. (2005 Sent. Tr. at 26.). However, the second sentencing transcript contains no mention of the children who are the true victims of child pornography, and the district court did not explain this change in the reasoning for its sentence, although the prosecution forcefully explained the importance of this factor at the sentencing hearing, stating that he's an end user of that child pornography, a business that has very, very, very damaging effects on children who are abused and others who are given access to that really degrading type of behavior. (2008 Sent. Tr. at 38.) As previously noted, there is no requirement that a district court be consistent upon re-sentencing; indeed, re-sentencing is required to correct a problem with the original sentencing. However, as before, this is a drastic change in sentencing rationale; the district court on re-sentencing seems concerned only with how the sentence will affect Christman and his mother. While this is important, they are not the victims of the crime and it is not for their benefit alone that the sentence must be imposed. The complete lack of explanation for this change is, given the unique circumstances of this case, unreasonable.