WASHINGTON - People convicted of possessing child pornography must pay victims only a share of the economic losses they endured, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a decision that tossed out a $3.4 million award and drew dissents from people on both sides of the case.
A five-justice majority said each culprit must pay an amount that “comports with the defendant’s relative role” in the harm suffered by the victim. The ruling was a partial victory for Doyle Randall Paroline, who pleaded guilty to possessing as many as 300 pornographic images, including two of a girl identified as “Amy” in court papers.
The case forced the justices to grapple with how much effect a single possessor of a widely distributed pornographic image has on a victim. Although a 1994 federal law says victims are entitled to compensation, the measure doesn’t spell out how judges should calculate the sum.
Amy sought $3.4 million in lost earnings and treatment costs as a result of her abuse when she was 8 and 9 years old. The ruling sets aside a federal appeals court decision that had required Paroline to pay the full sum.
“Defendants should be made liable for the consequences and gravity of their own conduct, not the conduct of others,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.
Kennedy said that while the amount wouldn’t be “token or nominal,” it also wouldn’t be “severe,” at least when the defendant was one of thousands of people who viewed an image.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan joined the majority opinion.
Chief Justice John Roberts was one of three dissenters who said that, while “Amy deserves restitution,” the 1994 statute makes it impossible for the government to show that Paroline’s conduct was the legal cause of her losses.
“The statute as written allows no recovery; we ought to say so and give Congress a chance to fix it,” Roberts wrote for himself and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said each viewer could be held liable for the full amount of the victims’ losses.
“It is my hope that the court’s approach will not unduly undermine the ability of victims like Amy to recover for - and from - the unfathomable harms they have sustained,” she wrote.
The ruling returns the case to a federal trial court in Texas to determine how much Paroline must pay.
Amy said she was “shocked and confused” by the court’s ruling, according to a statement posted online by her lawyer.
“I really don’t understand where this leaves me and other victims who now have to live with trying to get restitution probably for the rest of our lives,” she said.
Images of Amy being sexually assaulted by her uncle as a child have been widely circulated and have figured in thousands of criminal cases. Amy has often sought restitution for her losses under a 1994 federal law. Every viewing of child pornography, Congress found, “represents a renewed violation of the privacy of the victims and repetition of their abuse.”
Amy’s lawyers said her losses - for lost income, therapy and legal fees - amount to $3.4 million. She has been granted restitution in about 180 cases and has recovered about 40 percent of what she seeks.
The 1994 law allows victims of child pornography to seek the “full amount” of their losses from people convicted of producing, distributing or possessing it, and Amy asked the U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas, to order Paroline to pay her the full $3.4 million.
Paroline said he owed Amy nothing, arguing that her problems did not stem from learning that he had looked at images of her. Amy’s uncle, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his crimes, bore the brunt of the blame, Paroline said, but was ordered to pay Amy just $6,325.
Paroline was sentenced to two years in prison, but the trial judge said Amy was not entitled to restitution, saying the link between Amy’s losses and what Paroline did was too remote.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in New Orleans, disagreed and awarded Amy the $3.4 million she sought. Paroline should pay what he could and seek contributions from his fellow wrongdoers if he thought it was too much, the court said, relying on the legal doctrine of “joint and several” liability.
The Supreme Court adopted neither of the lower courts’ approaches. Kennedy said the only sensible method of apportionment was for courts to require “reasonable and circumscribed” restitution “in an amount that comports with the defendant’s relative role.”
“This cannot be a precise mathematical inquiry and involves the use of discretion and sound judgment,” Kennedy wrote.
The case is Paroline v. United States, 12-8561.
Information for this article was contributed by Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News and by Adam Liptak of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 04/24/2014