What a sin to send an innocent person to prison because they are afraid of a jury trail and accept a plea bargain of over 10 years in prison for idle curiosity. Granted there are perves out there but most of these young people looking at porn, any kind in today's world is just easy access. the ones who should be punished are the ones who are taking the pictures/movies and distributing them on the internet. The INTERNET must be censured by our goverment instead of runing the lives of countless families whose children are going to jail for just LOOKING.Come on America-wake up.
A young man [19] is surfing the internet for porn [gee young men never look at porn and are not curious] comes across child porn - has no idea what-so-ever as to the severity of what he's looking at - law enforcement has your internet tapped [they have the images identified and track these same images over and over directly to any web address] - a year later they knock on the door with a search warrant and confiscate the computer [why did they wait so long if these people are so dangerous] - have it analized and your life now becomes a living hell - the young mans life is destroyed as well as his family that has worked so hard and sacrificed so much to get him where he is at. To think this is how our federal government treats us is beyond comprehension! Well this happened to us - I am the parent of that boy. It's a shame the ignorant majority drive the laws in this country.
Talk about unfairness, listen to this - More than 250 Pentagon employees and contractors - some with high-level security clearances, viewed and purchased child pornography - some with government computers - a 2006 investigation found 264 Defense Department staffers and contractors, 9 with access to the nations most sensitive secrets purchased child porn online - they investigated only 52 and charged 10 - said they lacked the resources.
Who is the criminal here? No doubt the biggest criminal on this planet.
Here's one more interesting fact - Limewire was one of the most prolific pipelines for child pornography - our government has known this for years and has had it tapped so it can bait and trap unsuspecting victims - the smart child pornographers [makers and distributers] know how to avoid this. Well guess what - a federal judge finally shut it down - not for what you think but for copyrighted music violation. Thousands of people put in prison, lives destroyed, millions and millions of taxpayer dollars wasted and guess what they haven't put a dent in the child pornography industry! Our biggest and brightest in government - I don't think so.
Thanks alot USA
Non-violent men are spending 5-20 years in federal prisons for a first time non-violent offense for possession of internet child pornography. Their names plastered on a registry for years, if not life. Some of these men are innocent and mistakenly have these images on their computers because of Limewire, a file sharing site on the internet or even for others who put the files there and the individual is charged for it being on their computer.
Our own Federal Judges are questioning the disparity and asking that these guidelines be re-evaluated. Please sign this petition in favor of revising the disproportionate sentencing per the federal guidelines for simple possession of child pornography for first time offenders. The US Sentencing Commission has this as a topic to review in 2010.
What has our Justice System and the United States of America come to? We are hanging first time non-violent sex offenders out to dry.....putting them on display for the whole country to mock. Is this really the way to rehabilitate a citizen of our country? Do these individuals not have rights? These actions are those of times gone past, times of uncivilization. We are a much more intelligent country than to treat people with such disregard.
An individual sitting in their home viewing child pornography has not physically hurt or attempted to hurt a human being, nor do they show signs of violence. Due to the nature of the internet, it is simple to fall upon these images in today's society....without even looking too hard for them. I believe many of these individuals fall upon these images when searching for legal adult pornography. Many download images or videos that unknowingly contain child pornographic information..finding out only when it is too late and already on their computer.
We as a society need to get this stuff off of the internet. Federal and State authorities that know this stuff is out there are not moving to remove it from the internet. Creating and distributing child pornography should continue to be a serious felony crime and punishable by serving time in prison. To do this to a child is unspeakable.
The crime of possession of child pornography, viewing pictures on the internet, needs to seriously be re-evaluated. I believe a first time offense should be a misdemeanor, similar to that of possession of drugs or driving while intoxicated.
-- A drunk driver that makes a conscious decision to get behind the wheel of his car and drive, putting hundreds of lives in danger, is arrested on a misdemeanor charge for a first offense.
-- A person viewing images of child pornography on their computer in their basement is arrested on felony charges and cannot even get a fair trial as they are immediately shunned by society. Most are forced to plead guilty and are sentenced to years in federal prison.
-- Many of these sentences are longer than those of state sentences for violent crimes.
-- Additionally, when their federal pri
Grady Judd just wants the money that he can collect by locking them up and i know alot of the ones in there are inocent of the charges that was put on them. but he wants to be on t.v. and the radio to make people think that he is god. but when he has an affair with an under age he thinks that it is ok and no one can touch him or put him in jail so he gets aweay with it. where's the justice in that? why is he not in prison?
The legislature creates the laws that we are all bound to obey. The enforcement of those laws is the responsibility of the police. The judicial system is responsible for the administration of justice, and the "due process of law". When a citizen is charged, arrested, and placed on trial, justice is only served when one major requirement is met.
A process, or requirement, that is the foundation of American Justice, and is stated directly in the constitution by the founding fathers of this country. It is the basic ingredient for a just determination of whether a fellow citizen should be denied his liberty and is so elementary that every American child knows of it by the time they leave grammar school.
And that simple basic principle is , of course, that it is the government who bears the burden of proof. NOT the other way around.
The entire notion of blind justice therefore has, as its cornerstone, the presumption of innocence. If it is the government, by design, who must prove a defendant guilty, then until that proof becomes apparent, beyond reasonable doubt, any juror must maintain the premise that the defendant is to be presumed innocent. Should the government fail to meet its burden of proof the defendant need do nothing because he is to be presumed innocent.
The responsibility of a juror is an awesome one. The life and liberty of a fellow citizen is placed into his judgment. It may be difficult to wipe away all of the subjectivity, all of the temptation to peek over the "blindfold".
Listening to the media circus arranged by the highest law enforcement official in the County, Sheriff Grady Judd, as he proceeded to describe these defendants with such eloquent phrases such as "these folks don’t deserve the air they breathe".
This man can not possibly have the slightest understanding of the basic foundation of justice established for this country. What is most troubling is how this individual will stage such a media event that must have been months and months in the making with hours of attention paid to logistics, scheduling, and planning and after all those resources spent, all those hours allocated for this "operation" which means they were unavailable for investigations of thefts, murders, assaults, robberies, burglaries, domestic violence etc, he makes a statement that will affect each of these defendants forever and permanently. A slick media event was performed with such obvious inattention to facts, sentence structure, ambiguous innuendo, rambling, and just plain untruths. Where such judicial or administrative review is less thorough, where it is out of harmony with the findings in similar cases, where it presumes guilt, or where it is based upon law or concepts far removed from the will of the people or the Constitution, that American has been violated just as surely as if he had woken up in Stalin's Russia or Hitler's Germany.
I completely agree! This whole "sting operation" is a bunch of bull, aimed at getting some of these people on charges that don't exist, just because they need more money and/or can't get them on other charges!
Unfair trials and unjust punishment
35 People Have Sent 68 Letters and Emails
Sign the Petition
Some recent comments: these messages are published with permission of the signer.
Talk about unfairness, listen to this - More than 250 Pentagon employees and contractors - some with high-level security clearances, viewed and purchased child pornography - some with government computers - a 2006 investigation found 264 Defense Department staffers and contractors, 9 with access to the nations most sensitive secrets purchased child porn online - they investigated only 52 and charged 10 - said they lacked the resources.
Who is the criminal here? No doubt the biggest criminal on this planet.
Here's one more interesting fact - Limewire was one of the most prolific pipelines for child pornography - our government has known this for years and has had it tapped so it can bait and trap unsuspecting victims - the smart child pornographers [makers and distributers] know how to avoid this. Well guess what - a federal judge finally shut it down - not for what you think but for copyrighted music violation. Thousands of people put in prison, lives destroyed, millions and millions of taxpayer dollars wasted and guess what they haven't put a dent in the child pornography industry! Our biggest and brightest in government - I don't think so.
Thanks alot USA
Our own Federal Judges are questioning the disparity and asking that these guidelines be re-evaluated. Please sign this petition in favor of revising the disproportionate sentencing per the federal guidelines for simple possession of child pornography for first time offenders. The US Sentencing Commission has this as a topic to review in 2010.
What has our Justice System and the United States of America come to? We are hanging first time non-violent sex offenders out to dry.....putting them on display for the whole country to mock. Is this really the way to rehabilitate a citizen of our country? Do these individuals not have rights? These actions are those of times gone past, times of uncivilization. We are a much more intelligent country than to treat people with such disregard.
An individual sitting in their home viewing child pornography has not physically hurt or attempted to hurt a human being, nor do they show signs of violence. Due to the nature of the internet, it is simple to fall upon these images in today's society....without even looking too hard for them. I believe many of these individuals fall upon these images when searching for legal adult pornography. Many download images or videos that unknowingly contain child pornographic information..finding out only when it is too late and already on their computer.
We as a society need to get this stuff off of the internet. Federal and State authorities that know this stuff is out there are not moving to remove it from the internet. Creating and distributing child pornography should continue to be a serious felony crime and punishable by serving time in prison. To do this to a child is unspeakable.
The crime of possession of child pornography, viewing pictures on the internet, needs to seriously be re-evaluated. I believe a first time offense should be a misdemeanor, similar to that of possession of drugs or driving while intoxicated.
-- A drunk driver that makes a conscious decision to get behind the wheel of his car and drive, putting hundreds of lives in danger, is arrested on a misdemeanor charge for a first offense.
-- A person viewing images of child pornography on their computer in their basement is arrested on felony charges and cannot even get a fair trial as they are immediately shunned by society. Most are forced to plead guilty and are sentenced to years in federal prison.
-- Many of these sentences are longer than those of state sentences for violent crimes.
-- Additionally, when their federal pri
A process, or requirement, that is the foundation of American Justice, and is stated directly in the constitution by the founding fathers of this country. It is the basic ingredient for a just determination of whether a fellow citizen should be denied his liberty and is so elementary that every American child knows of it by the time they leave grammar school.
And that simple basic principle is , of course, that it is the government who bears the burden of proof. NOT the other way around.
The entire notion of blind justice therefore has, as its cornerstone, the presumption of innocence. If it is the government, by design, who must prove a defendant guilty, then until that proof becomes apparent, beyond reasonable doubt, any juror must maintain the premise that the defendant is to be presumed innocent. Should the government fail to meet its burden of proof the defendant need do nothing because he is to be presumed innocent.
The responsibility of a juror is an awesome one. The life and liberty of a fellow citizen is placed into his judgment. It may be difficult to wipe away all of the subjectivity, all of the temptation to peek over the "blindfold".
Listening to the media circus arranged by the highest law enforcement official in the County, Sheriff Grady Judd, as he proceeded to describe these defendants with such eloquent phrases such as "these folks don’t deserve the air they breathe".
This man can not possibly have the slightest understanding of the basic foundation of justice established for this country. What is most troubling is how this individual will stage such a media event that must have been months and months in the making with hours of attention paid to logistics, scheduling, and planning and after all those resources spent, all those hours allocated for this "operation" which means they were unavailable for investigations of thefts, murders, assaults, robberies, burglaries, domestic violence etc, he makes a statement that will affect each of these defendants forever and permanently. A slick media event was performed with such obvious inattention to facts, sentence structure, ambiguous innuendo, rambling, and just plain untruths. Where such judicial or administrative review is less thorough, where it is out of harmony with the findings in similar cases, where it presumes guilt, or where it is based upon law or concepts far removed from the will of the people or the Constitution, that American has been violated just as surely as if he had woken up in Stalin's Russia or Hitler's Germany.
Sign the Petition