Amy and Vicky, Child Porn Victims: No Joint and Several Liability
From FindLaw, a post about the Marsh Law Firm's latest restitution case:
You'd have to imagine, at some point, that either Congress (ha!) or the Supreme Court will step in and clear up the confusion surrounding restitution for those depicted in child pornography, as well as the issue of joint and several liability of the present day possessors of the images. Though they've denied certiorari in Amy and Vicky cases before, the flood of circuit court confusion and circuit splintering continues.
Last September, the ABA Journal wrote an exhaustive feature on Amy and Vicky, ...
Restitution Returns to the United States Supreme Court (again)
Today, James R. Marsh of the Marsh Law Firm and Paul G. Cassell of the University of Utah College of Law Appellate Legal Clinic, filed a brief in the United States Supreme Court in their latest effort to convince the Court to consider the critical issue of criminal restitution for victims of child pornography.
The case, Doyle Randall Paroline v. Amy Unknown, arises out of a long-fought extensively litigated restitution action which started almost four years ago before Judge Leonard Davis in the Eastern District of Texas Tyler Division.
In January, the defendant filed a ...
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.
Acc...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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."