UNREAL: LEADING LIBERAL FEDERAL JUDGE: WE'RE TOO TOUGH ON CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS

THE LATEST CHAPTER IN THE ON-GOING NYTIMES' PROMOTION THE LEFT'S GRAMSCIAN AGENDA: DEFENDING CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS.

• IT LINKS TO A PROFILE OF ONE OF THE LEFT'S FAVORITE FEDERAL JUDGES - A BIG ANTI-2ND AMENDMENT GUY.

• HE THINKS OUR LAWS ARE TOO TOUGH ON CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS.

• HE WANTS LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS TO BE UNARMED AND FOR SEXUAL DEVIANTS TO BE UNHARMED.

• WHAT AN ASS.

THE ARTICLE WAS PENNED BY AG SULZBERGER - WHICH CERTAINLY PROVES THAT THE NYTIMES SEES THIS AN IMPORTANT ISSUE THAT DESERVES PROMINENCE.

EXCERPT:

Judge Weinstein has gone to extraordinary lengths to challenge the strict punishments, issuing a series of rulings that directly attack the mandatory five-year prison sentence faced by defendants charged with receiving child pornography.

“I don’t approve of child pornography, obviously,” he said in an interview this week. But, he also said, he does not believe that those who view the images, as opposed to producing or selling them, present a threat to children.

“We’re destroying lives unnecessarily,” he said. “At the most, they should be receiving treatment and supervision.”

The man he has spent three years trying to save from a long incarceration is Pietro Polizzi, a married father of five who collected more than 5,000 graphic pictures of children. If prosecuted in a New York State court, he would have faced a maximum prison sentence of four years. Instead, in federal court, he faced a minimum of five years and a recommended sentence of 11 to 14 years. Because of Judge Weinstein’s intervention, he remains free as he awaits another trial.

“I don’t see Judge Weinstein as a judge,” Mr. Polizzi said during an interview as tears rolled down his face. “I see him as my father. He helps people. He doesn’t destroy lives the way the prosecutor has. He’s the one who is going to set me free from the court.”

The child pornography industry has flourished through the Internet; the number of federal cases grew from fewer than 100 annually to more than 1,600 last year. As the number grew, Congress increased the recommended prison terms and established a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for anyone convicted of receiving child pornography.

... At 88, Judge Weinstein is one of the longest serving members of the federal bench. Supporters praise his taking unusual actions in pursuit of his notions of justice, like for a time refusing to handle drug cases out of opposition to mandatory minimums. Critics say that in the process, he disregards the law.

... Child pornography cases almost always end with guilty pleas. But when the case was assigned to Judge Weinstein, Mr. Polizzi’s lawyer recommended that he go to trial. The lawyer used an insanity defense, claiming Mr. Polizzi had been repeatedly raped as a child and had collected the pictures not for sexual gratification, but in hopes of finding evidence of his own abuse — claims the prosecution dismissed as implausible. When the first of the images were shown in court, Mr. Polizzi collapsed and was taken to a hospital.

The jury was given the standard instruction not to consider possible punishment during deliberations. After three days, on Oct. 5, 2007, Mr. Polizzi was convicted of all 12 counts of receipt of child pornography and 11 counts of possession.

Then Judge Weinstein broke from the script with a question almost never posed in court:

If the jurors had known about the minimum prison sentence, would they have voted to convict?

Five jurors spoke up against imprisonment. Two said they would have changed their votes.

Judge Weinstein tossed out the guilty verdict on the more serious receipt counts and ordered a new trial.

... Judge Weinstein declared that Mr. Polizzi had a constitutional right to have a jury know the punishment that would accompany a guilty verdict, a right he said he had violated.

He pledged to inform the next jury of the mandatory minimum sentence.

That idea, floated by a federal judge in Manhattan several years earlier in another child pornography case but rejected on appeal, would give jurors the option of refusing to convict if the punishment seemed disproportionate, as several jurors had indicated they believed it was in Mr. Polizzi’s case.

“That was quite an unusual way of handling it,” said Amy Baron-Evans, the national sentencing resource counsel for the federal public defenders’ office. “Usually the judges are just stuck with the mandatory minimum.”

The Court of Appeals last year overruled Judge Weinstein’s order of a new trial

JACK WEINSTEIN IS SICK.

LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH.

THE JUDGE IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE REFEREE, NOT THE DEFENDING ATTORNEY - AND NOT A LEGISLATOR MAKING THE LAW.

JUDGE JACK WEINSTEIN SHOULD BE IMPEACHED AND DISBARRED.

BUT NOT SURPRISING: THIS IS FROM THE SAME PEOPLE WHO GAVE KEVIN JENNINGS A BIG JOB.

SICK. BUT I BETCHYA HE'S THE TOAST OF THE LIBERAL COCKTAIL CIRCUIT HERE IN NYC!

ASIDE:

• I WONDER WHAT BARRY AND MICHELLE OBAMA THINK?
  

• THEY HAVE TWO YOUNG DAUGHTERS. WOULD THEY REALLY WANT THEM EXPOSED TO CHILD PORNOGRAPHY AND A CHILD PORNOGRAPHER WHO WOULD BE PUT AWAY UNDER CURRENT LAWS - LAWS THIS JUDGE WANTS RELAXED!?!?!

• OF COURSE NOT.

• BUT THEN AGAIN, THEY PROBABLY THINK IT WOULDN'T EFFECT THEIR KIDS: THESE ELITIST LEFTIES THINK THEY'RE ABOVE THE LAW OR OUTSIDE THE LAW:

• THEY THINK THAT IT'S FINE THAT THEY CAN HARANGUE US ABOUT AGW AND DEMAND WE PAY WHOPPING CO2 TAXES TO REDUCE OUR ENERGY USE, WHILE THEY LIVE IN HUGE HOMES AND USE PRIVATE JETS HAVE SEVERAL LARGE CARS AND SO ON.

I THINK THAT THESE LEFTISTS ARE EVERY BIT AS BAD AND DANGEROUS AS CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS.