Paroline v. United States

134 S.Ct 1710 (2014)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Paroline (D) pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. He admitted to possessing between 150 and 300 images of child pornography, which included two that depicted the sexual exploitation of a young girl, now a young woman, who goes by the pseudonym “Amy” for this litigation. When Amy was eight and nine years old, she was sexually abused by her uncle in order to produce child pornography. Her uncle was prosecuted, required to pay about $6,000 in restitution, and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. A major blow to her recovery came when, at the age of 17, she learned that images of her abuse were being trafficked on the Internet. Knowledge that her images were circulated far and wide renewed Amy’s trauma and made it difficult for her to recover from her abuse. Amy sought restitution under §2259, asking for close to $3.4 million, consisting of nearly $3 million in lost income and about $500,000 in future treatment and counseling costs. The District Court declined to award restitution. It concluded that the Government had the burden of proving the amount of the victim’s losses “directly produced by D that would not have occurred without his possession of her images.” It found that the Government had failed to meet its burden of proving what losses, if any, were proximately caused by D’s offense. It thus held that “an award of restitution is not appropriate in this case.” Amy sought a writ of mandamus. The Court of Appeals set out to determine the level of proof required to award restitution. It held that §2259 did not limit restitution to losses proximately caused by D, and each D who possessed the victim’s images should be made liable for the victim’s entire losses from the trade in her images, even though other offenders played a role in causing those losses.