Isn't something backward in this sentencing?

lawtonfogle said:

Woman sentenced after streaming sex abuse of daughter over webcam - CNN.com

The first two sentences in and I noticed a problem. She received 15 years for raping her child, but received 20 for streaming it. Isn't that backwards?

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How so? Violating a child for one's own personal gratification or perversion is horrible. Violating a child and recording it, in order to feed someone else's perversion and is even worse.

Also, why should she be allowed to serve both sentences at the same time and not back to back?

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Concurrent sentencing is generally the norm in criminal cases. Whether sentencing is consecutive or concurrent is generally governed specifically by statute. But, the general principal is that one of the principal purposes of incarceration is to help people understand that what they did was wrong and will not be tolerated. If they commit two crimes close enough together in time that they weren't given the chance to receive that message, then this purpose of incarceration is not served by consecutive sentencing. in this particular case, it makes sense. It is not as though the woman did two distinct horrible acts. Rather, she committed one atrocity that coincidentally violated two criminal statutes.

lawtonfogle said:

Also, why should she be allowed to serve both sentences at the same time and not back to back?

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dies-l said:

Apparently you didn't read this sentence: "U.S. District Judge John Woodcock imposed the second sentence Tuesday, which will run concurrently with the first." Concurrently means at the same time.

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I'm not seeing the problem with what the OP stated. I've never understood concurrent sentencing, though.

selfinflikted said:

I'm not seeing the problem with what the OP stated. I've never understood concurrent sentencing, though.

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You're right. I misread what he wrote.

selfinflikted said:

I'm not seeing the problem with what the OP stated. I've never understood concurrent sentencing, though.

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I think it's for situations where specific violations are substantially similar or constitute an overall crime and punishment for each would seem unjust.

Imagine that possession of an ounce or more of a certain class of drugs is punishable with a ten year sentence. Criminal A is charged with possessing one ounce of drug X, one ounce of drug Y, and one ounce of drug Z. Criminal B is charged with possessing three ounces of drug X. Under the law, criminal A could be sentenced to 30 years while criminal B could only be sentenced to 10 years. I wouldn't say that one criminal is more culpable than the other; they both were carrying three ounces of drugs. Allowing the three sentences to run concurrently for criminal A seems to be a fairer sentence.

selfinflikted said:

I'm not seeing the problem with what the OP stated. I've never understood concurrent sentencing, though.

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One thing concurent sentencing does is insure they stay in jail for a reasonable time. A decent Judge actually weighs what the person did and any mitigating factors. If the Judge thinks 20 years is right for this by going with 20 and 15 concurently instead of 10 each consecutively they insure against an appeal where the the posting to the internet gets thrown out (let's say constitutional challenge under 1st ammendment).

Then they are still in for 15, not 10.

lawtonfogle said:

I bolded the key word. The issue is that it is still the abuse, as you admit, that makes it so bad. Merely recording child abuse is not itself worse than abusing the child. The combination may be worst of all, but according to the article, she was charged separately for each. So violating a child got her 15 years, recording a child being violated got her 20. Had a second party been recording, and her only violating the child, the second party would have been punished with 5 years more.

I think that:
Abusing and recording is worse than abusing is worse than recording.

But, this doesn't seem to be how the law works.

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Remember that criminal law considers not only actions, but the motivation behind those actions. This is why, for example, negligent homicide is punished far less severely than first degree murder, even though both crimes involve a specific course of conduct that results in the death of another person. I suspect that the legislative intent of the law against recording/distributing child porn assumes a more nefarious motive than sexual abuse. And, this is reflected in this case.

The reasoning that this should only have been one crime, but technically was two, makes some sense. But why then waste the resources prosecuting her for the second one if she already was sentenced to a harsher punishment the first time. This seems one area we can tighten the belt, and she will be in jail 20 years either way.

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Prosecutors never have any guarantee of obtaining a conviction. The more crimes that they are able to charge an individual with, the greater their chances of obtaining a conviction on at least one charge. Charging multiple crimes also gives the prosecuting attorney more negotiating power. A very common plea offer is such cases is that the PA will dismiss the less severe charge in exchange for a guilty plea to the more severe. The ultimate goal is to get a conviction without going to trial and so negotiating power is important.