REASON: The Amy, Vicky, and Andy Act Is Signed Into Law
On Friday, President Trump signed into law the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018 (AVAA). The Act will help victims of what are frequently referred to as “child pornography” crimes obtain full restitution.The Act helps to resolve a thorny legal issue about how to provide restitution to victims — an issue that was addressed in a 2014 case I argued before the U.S. Supreme Court with co-counsel James Marsh, Paroline v. United States.
Since the Paroline ruling, federal trial courts across the country have struggled to operationalize the Supreme Court’s command to “order restitution in an amount that comports with the defendant’s relative role in the causal process” — and for good reason. If (as seems quite likely) Amy is victimized by tens of thousands of viewers of her images, it may be next-to-impossible to assign some specific causal role to any particular defendant.
From a practical point of view, with regard to restitution litigation the most salient feature of the new law will be the $3,000 fixed minimum amount. This minimum ensures that child pornography victims will not receive a token aware from any particular defendant.
FAC COMMENTARY:
So the ACT (a copy of which can be seen here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2152/text) sets a minimum amount of restitution a CP offender must pay ($3000) so that the restitution cannot be said to be negligible, but it also caps the amount a victim can collect to be the aggregate of the full amount of the victim’s losses.
It further caps amounts based on the culpability of the Defendant in the crime.
(1) not more than $17,000 on any person convicted of an offense under section 2252(a)(4) or 2252A(a)(5);
(2) not more than $35,000 on any person convicted of any other offense for trafficking in child pornography; and
(3) not more than $50,000 on any person convicted of a child pornography production offense.
The ACT is not something new. it merely sets a minimum amount (and maximum).
Discover more from Florida Action Committee
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Will this be applied retroactively? I see nothing about that in what I have read.
no – it will not.
Maggie, a drug addict, sent her young daughter, Bridgett, a high school student, out on the streets to work as a prostitute to bring in some money for her drug addiction. Bridgett became addicted to drugs herself and died at the age of 24 from a heart infection caused my using unsanitary needles. If pictures of young naked Bridgett appear, Maggie (Bridgett’s closest relative) will soon be able to collect the $17,000 reward she earned for being prudent enough to send her daughter out to work as a prostitute! On the day of her daughter’s funeral, Maggie missed the funeral to get high! This new law will allow drug addicted moms everywhere to fund their addiction by sending their teenage daughters out for sexually charged photo shoots, then waiting for them to die so they can collect the $17,000 check! Think I am making this story up? Bridgett is real! https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/bridget-ticknor-obituary?pid=169969505&page=2
I never thought they would use three names now on a bill/act. Damn ! it’s like a Hydra now.
This law will certainly be a boost to the amount of available child pornography available! There are many parent’s struggling to make ends meet who do not share the taboo of child nudity that others do who will see this law as a way to allow their child to cash in on the changes to the law. This increase will help fund lawyers and the private jails. According to a 2016 USA today article, the largest child pornography websites are run by the FBI. The FBI therefore ends up using naked children as FBI agents. Will these children be compensated or are those children’s reward of doing a noble service to our government payment enough?
Interesting Article:
Nicki Minaj and Registered Sex Offender Kenneth Petty’s Rumored New Romance Is Instagram Official
https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/nicki-minaj-goes-instagram-official-with-sex-offender-kenneth-petty/?utm_source=email&em_hash=e8b5a7fdc4abb3f545ebac4208e9d52f
and Nicki’s brother is a registered citizen as well, I believe. Maybe her brother introduced them.
FAC, the entire statute 18 U.S. Code § 2259 has been amended and expanded to introduce the term “trafficking in child pornography.” None of those words appears in the original text as 2259 was a generic restitution statute:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2259
Now the statute is directly aimed at trafficking in child pornography.