United States Second Circuit

Conviction for child pornography possession is vacated and remanded where: 1) the district court erred by entering multiple convictions instead of a single conviction for possession of a single collection of child pornography, and the error affected defendant's substantial rights; and 2) the district court erred in granting defendant's motion for a new trial on the receipt counts as defendant had no Sixth Amendment right to an instruction on the applicable mandatory minimum sentence, although the court does have the discretion to do so in some circumstances.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/24/2009
• Published 04/24/2009

Judges

• KATZMANN, Circuit Judge:, Before:  LEVAL, KATZMANN, and RAGGI, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Colleen P. Cassidy, Federal Defenders of New York, Inc., New York, NY, for Amicus Curiae Federal Defenders of New York, Inc.


• For Appellees:
  
• David M. Shapiro, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Washington, DC (Jeffrey L. Fisher, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, Seattle, WA and Mitchell J. Dinnerstein, on the brief), for Defendant-Appellant Cross-Appellee., Allen L. Bode, Assistant United States Attorney (Peter A. Norling and Andrea Goldbarg, Assistant United States Attorneys, on the brief), for Benton J. Campbell, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY, for Appellee Cross-Appellant., A. Stephen Hut, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, LLP, Washington, DC, Adam J. Hornstine, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, LLP, Washington, DC, Richard D. Willstatter, Green & Willstatter, White Plains, NY, and Peter Goldberger, Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation, Ardmore, PA, for Amici Curiae the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation, in support of Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.