During today’s United States Sentencing Commission public hearing in Chicago, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald discussed the dissonance between some district judges and prosecutors who handle child pornography and child exploitation cases.  Fitzgerald stated,    ”One could posit that perhaps the judges are more lenient because they have less personal contact with the victims and see things more through the lens of the defendant standing before the judge.”  He also said,  ” Along the same lines, the prosecutors have little or no interaction with the defendant.”  

 The Commission heard from a number of selected speakers including private attorneys and other judges, in an effort to help the independent agency review guidelines and sentencing within the federal courts. I have selected about a five minute segment of Fitzgerald’s speech to the commission…watch it here{VignetteVideo assettitl=”US+Attorney+Patrick+Fitzgerald” id=”64D64B73F44588CACF90354E646BF2E0″ width=”375″ aspectratio=”1.77″ height=”211.864406779661″ autoplay=”off” }