United States Seventh Circuit

Conviction and sentence for possession of child pornography is affirmed where: 1) defendant's guilty plea waived his challenge to the jurisdictional element of his conviction, and evidence was sufficient to establish a factual basis for the jurisdictional element of his offense; 2) the district court did not err in increasing his sentencing guidelines range after finding that the offense involved more than 600 images of child pornography as the visual inspection of the images was sufficient to find that they were images of actual minors and not virtual ones; and 3) defendant's argument that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury and not the district court to determine contested factual issues at sentencing fails as defendant was sentenced below the statutory maximum for his offense.

Appellate Information

• Argued 02/20/2009
• Decided 06/12/2009
• Published 06/12/2009

Judges

• MANION, Circuit Judge., Before BAUER, MANION, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Thomas Edward Leggans, Attorney (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Benton, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee., Dean Boland (argued), Lakewood, OH, for Defendant-Appellant.