It may be called the nation's harshest child porn possession law, but Arizona's law is now under fire, with four judges throwing out cases over constitutional questions recently and eight in the past year thrown out. The controversy is over whether the sentencing ranges are unfair, according to the Arizona Republic
Defense attorneys are saying more moderate sentences in other states mean the Arizona law is out of proportion, the paper said, but prosecutors won't back down from the law's severity. Selling, trading, or buying child porn is deemed as serious as child molestation, the Republic said, with 10-24 years per count and sentences mandated to run back-to-back.
The paper cited such cases as Morton Robert Berger, who was hit with a 200-year sentence for downloading child porn images; and, Arthur Stanely Jones, who got socked with 408 years for downloading seventeen such pictures.
But the paper added that another key question involves virtual child porn – whether an image merely made to look like a minor should be considered child porn. The U.S. Supreme Court, of course, ruled last year that there was no harm unless actual children appear in the images, but a recently signed federal law setting up a child abduction reporting network also included a provision outlawing virtual child porn again.
Prosecutors, however, told the paper that prowling the Net for child porn images "are creating a market that can harm children."
