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 ...
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 pornograp...
Sixth Circuit Rejects Commonsense Approach to Child Pornography Restitution
Last week, the Sixth Circuit issued this confusing decision on child pornography restitution in the combined cases of United States v. James D. Gamble and Shawn Crawford.
The Court held that the child pornography restitution statute contains both a cause-in-fact requirement—i.e., a showing that the defendant's conduct actually caused the victim's losses—and and a requirement that the cause be proximate.
The Court found that "the statute still allows victims to collect more restitution than under earlier and concurrent restitution statutes. The statute expands ...
Amicus Support Victim Restitution – Brief Filed in Supreme Court
Today, the National Crime Victim Law Institute (NCVLI) moved for leave to file, as amicus curiae, this brief in support of the Marsh Law Firm's recent Petition for a Writ of Certiorari concerning whether the Mandatory Restitution for Sexual Exploitation of Children Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2259, excuses a defendant from paying restitution for the itemized loss categories unless there is proof that the victim’s losses were the proximate result of an individual defendant’s child pornography crime.
NCVLI is a nonprofit educational and advocacy organization located ...