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A notable district court opinion on the post-Booker ex post facto issue

By Douglas A. Berman

Thanks to this piece in the New York Law Journal, which is headlined "Use of Current Sentencing Rules Barred for 2003 Confession," I see that a New York district court has issued a notable and quite thoughtful ruling addressing post-Booker ex post facto issues in the context of giving a relatively low sentence to a child porn downloader. Here is how the NYLJ piece describes the case and the ruling: An admitted possessor of child pornography who was not prosecuted for more than four years following his confession in 2003 cannot be subjected to the longer prison sentences established in the interim under the federal sentencing guidelines, a federal judge has ruled. Southern District of New York Judge Richard J. Holwell said the Constitution's ex post facto clause -- Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 -- would be violated if Brennan Sweeney were sentenced to a longer prison term than the guidelines called for in 2003 when the FBI raided his apartment...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 09, 2010 (boomark / email).