10th Circuit Fires the Series-Qualifier Canon Across the Restitution Bow

Earlier this month, in an uninspired decision in United States v. Benoit, the Tenth Circuit held that "showing only that defendant participated in the audience of persons who viewed the images of the victim…may be sufficient to establish that defendant's actions were one cause of the generalized harm victims suffered due to the circulation of their images on the internet, but it is not sufficient to show that they were a proximate cause of any particular losses." In other words, "generalized harm" = no foul and no restitution for victims of child pornography. According to the Tenth Circuit: Courts have struggled with articulating a precise ...

The Adoption Industry’s Ugly Side

In a commentary in Politico, John Echohawk, Executive Director, Native American Rights Fund; Jacqueline Pata, Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians; and Terry Cross, Executive Director, National Indian Child Welfare Association, discuss today's oral argument in the Supreme Court case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl: All across this country - but especially in states that are home to multiple Native American Tribes - unethical adoption attorneys are purposely circumventing the federal law that is meant to protect Native American children. Even worse are the continuing attempts by some adoption lawyers to take advantage of active duty ...

Supreme Court – Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl

Oral Argument: April 16, 2013 Court Below: South Carolina Supreme Court Petitioners, Adoptive Couple, decided to adopt a baby girl from a single mother. After Baby Girl's birth, Adoptive Couple began the official adoption process and Birth Father, a member of the Cherokee Nation, signed a form relinquishing his rights to Baby Girl. Later, however, Birth Father claimed that he did not intend to relinquish his rights and sought to invoke the Indian Child Welfare Act ("ICWA") because Baby Girl is of Indian heritage.Both the Charleston County Family Court and the Supreme Court of South Carolina held that Birth Father should have custody of Baby Girl. A...

Adolescent Depression Impacts Young Adult Relationships

Depressive or suicidal symptoms during adolescence might do more than temporary harm. Researchers at Child Trends have found that young adults who had reported those symptoms as adolescents were more likely to be in unhealthy relationships, characterized by violence or infidelity. Because they knew it might be tempting to attribute this to demographic differences, researchers controlled for age, gender, parent education, family structure, income and race/ethnicity. In their brief, "Measuring the Associations Between Symptoms of Depression and Suicide in Adolescence and Unhealthy Romantic Relationships in Young Adulthood," they report that the ...

Behind the Cover Story: Emily Bazelon on Pornography and Punishment

Emily Bazelon discusses her New York Times Magazine cover story, The Price of a Stolen Childhood, about the Marsh Law Firm's groundbreaking work representing victims of child pornography. Behind the Cover Story: Emily Bazelon on Pornography and Punishment "It's a common refrain in child pornography cases to say that it is a victimless crime. The person who downloaded the image was quote unquote just looking. Restitution helps force them to see that they are part of a market that depends on hurting real children."

Foster Care as a Mitigating Circumstance in Criminal Proceedings

Just published in Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review is an article, Foster Care as a Mitigating Circumstance in Criminal Proceedings. The article addresses the question: should a history of foster care involvement serve as a legitimate mitigating circumstance for a defendant in a criminal trial? According to the article: The sensationalism of many criminal trials, especially those of a capital nature, often result from the aggravating circumstances impacting the victim. Conversely, the mitigating circumstances that affect the accused‘s criminality rarely grab headlines. During the sentencing phase of a criminal trial, mitigating ...

Opprescedent Decisions Continue for Victims of Child Pornography

Last month, in United States v. Robert M. Fast, the Eighth Circuit, in a 2-1 split decision, rejected full restitution for child pornography victims, holding that: Congress determined that these [child pornography] restitution offenses typically proximately cause the losses enumerated in subsections 2259(b)(3)(A) through (E). Congress did not mean that a specific defendant automatically proximately causes those losses in every case. The government still has to prove that the defendant proximately caused those losses. [I]njury to the child depicted in the child pornography…is a readily foreseeable result of distribution and possession of child ...

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