Frank's Musings

18 U.S.C. § 2252A

The U.S. Federal Code includes laws that are intended to reduce, if not eliminate, the sexual exploitation of minor children.  The behavior that is prohibited includes not only production and distribution of computer images that depict such criminal acts; it also penalizes the simple possession of them.  This latter violation is what the defendant, Mr. Hawkins, was convicted of in 2013, the federal district court decision and sentencing for which were determined by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The Judge has been under attack by Sens. Hawley, Graham, Cruz and other Republicans for her sentencing of Mr. Hawkins lightly, when she was on that district court.  They wish to implicate her of being typical of the ideological and partisan  opponents they anticipate facing in the elections later this year and in 2024   This is an extreme  distortion of the Constitutional procedure  for confirming a nominee to the Supreme Court.  Moreover, it illustrates the improper attempt to impose social values on the public by Congress when it was controlled by reactionary ideologues.

Some of those ideologues, particularly in the U.S. Senate, now believe they have an opportunity to recapture a majority in the Congress and to preserve a conservative majority on the Supreme Court despite the Democratic control of the White House.  Therefore, they are using the confirmation hearings for Judge Jackson to energize their base of supporters by creating a crusade against child abuse to defend the misuse of federal regulatory power that this feature of the U.S. Code represents.  Indeed although she hasn’t admitted it, Judge Jackson’s sentencing decision in the Hawkins case demonstrates how a judge can attempt to moderate the overzealous pursuit of cultural conformity by a minorit political faction.                          

Fortunately, we have no law that criminalizes the production of a murder mystery.  Only a revision of Section 2252A of the U.S. Code will return this section of our law to its correct function of addressing the commission of crimes that foist child abuse.  Left alone, it puts the U.S, Government in the role of a parent or religious leader instilling our citizens with moral virtues.