High court nixes $3.4M award to child porn victim

Associated Press ^ | Apr 23, 2014 5:38 PM EDT | Mark Sherman

[Olog-hai]

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a plea to make it easier for victims of child pornography to collect money from people who view their images online, throwing out a nearly $3.4 million judgment in favor of a woman whose childhood rape has been widely seen on the Internet. Two dissenting justices said Congress should change the law to benefit victims.

The justices said in a 5-4 ruling that a 1994 federal law gives victims the right to seek restitution from offenders, but only to the extent that the victim’s losses are tied to the offenders’ actions. In this case, Doyle Randall Paroline was held liable by a federal appeals court for the entire amount of the woman’s losses, though his computer contained just two images of her, among more than 150 illicit photographs. …

[cherry]

sad.....what pathetic excuses for human beings let alone men.....

[publius911]

Sounds like this is another "contingency attorney" scam.
How much of that $3.4 million does that attorney get?
Just because it's easier, doesn't make it legal or just.

To take the absurd extreme, if each "defendant" is responsible for the entire amount, and there are, say, 10,000,000 U.S. resident defendants, does it mean the final amount 10,000,000 times $3.4 million? with the attorney getting 40% of that total?

Sounds like the next attorney benefit lottery. "Push" the offending imagery onto random victims' computers (yes, it happens all the time) and then have the attorneys or their agents, hacking all over the place to snoop into every computer possible, and then get swat teams to attack random clueless computer users, which would define most users, nationwide..

Something just doesn't compute here.

[GeronL]

10000000 people want to see kiddie porn??

What a sicko world

[sickoflibs]

RE:”Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said the restitution law as written should mean that Amy gets nothing. In a separate dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she would have upheld the full award.”

That one’s easy.

[crazyhorse691]

I followed the case of an 8 yr old girl raped by repeatedly by her father who had posted one of those sessions on the Internet. We figured it went worldwide in a matter of hours. He is in prison after years on the run, she is all messed up, and the video is still out there. I totally believe that anybody who watches that video for enjoyment is just as guilty as the person who made it.We knew within days who it was because he had been an LEO.

[berdie]

I don’t have a problem with it being limited.

The perps will never be able to pay a dime.

[Psalm 144]

What the “Supreme” Court has done is help insulate the perverts who would watch this from monetary damages. They have taken away one of the things which would abate such continued victimization.