The court reversed because the sentence was too light given the facts of the case:
A federal appeals court threw out the 10-year prison sentence of a woman who rented her 9-year-old daughter to a pedophile more than 200 times, saying the punishment was too lenient.
The woman often held the girl down in their home while Joe J. Champion molested her, according to court documents. Champion typically paid the mother $20.
The Associated Press is not naming the woman, to protect her daughter's identity.
"The factors of this case are no less than horrifying," Judge William Jay Riley wrote in the unanimous opinion released Monday by a three-judge panel.
Champion pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The woman, convicted in 2003 of aggravated sexual abuse and conspiring with Champion to help him molest the girl, was sentenced to 17-1/2 years in prison -- the minimum provided under sentencing guidelines.
She appealed, and a panel of judges sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Charles A. Shaw, saying he might have given her a lighter sentence if he had known he was not bound by the guidelines.
It is an interesting contrast with the Georgia case because both of the sentences were for ten years. Professor Volokh continued his unusual day of covering criminal cases by noting:
On the Other Hand, 10 Years Is Much Too Short a Sentence for This:
From United States v. Kane, decided yesterday by the Eighth Circuit (thanks to How Appealing for the pointer). Ruth Kane let Joe Champion sexually abuse Kane's daughter 200 times over two years, starting when the daughter was nine, and even "physically participated and restrained her daughter" during some of the acts. "Kane's daughter and Champion testified Kane received payments of $20 from Champion as compensation for providing her daughter for Champion’s sexual gratification."
Meanwhile, Professor Berman posted about the case in the context of his continuing trouble with the Eighth Circuit reversing below-guideline sentences. I agree with the comment at Sentencing Law & Policy that this may be one case where the Eighth Circuit was more than justified in its reversal. Either way, given the coincidence of the Georgia case, these two cases really highly some of the unusual results in the American criminal sentencing system in the area of sex crimes.
Actually, what they really reveal is that criminal sentencing remains a deeply dividing issue, period. In our minds, we are caught between the desire for "equality" (treating similar situtations the same) and "discretion" (recognizing when different situations are different). The problem is that there is no balancing of these two ideas. Any time you give someone discretion, you will find another judge or judges that disagree with the use of that discretion. Any time you try to impliment equality, you will find cases that cry out for different treatment.
The fundamental problem is that there is no resolution to this issue outside of the Constitution. I almost never agree with SCJ Scalia but I do on this issue. The Constitution *demands* that judges be given discretion. If the people do not like the way judges exercise that discretion the proper answer is not an appeals court. It is either at the ballot box or voting with their feet.
The problem is not whether 10 years is to long or too short. The Constitutional problem is that the length of the sentence is not an appealable act.
Posted by: Daniel | December 21, 2006 at 09:10 PM