The Unfairness of Child Porn Laws

On this gorgeous spring Sunday morning, how about something to get you riled up enough to go outside and pull weeds?

The Louisville Courier-Journal tackles the question head-on:

Born with spina bifida and dependent on a wheelchair, 26-year-old Jon Michael Fox cannot hurt a soul, his mother and lawyer say.

But after being caught with more than 1,200 images of child pornography on his computer, some of which he traded with others, Fox was sentenced in 2009 by a federal judge in Louisville to 14 years in prison — with no option of early release.

The Justice Department says that long sentences for offenders such as Fox — even if they have had no contact with children — are vital in slowing the demand for child porn and the abuse of children exploited in making it.

But Fox’s attorney, Frank Campisano Jr., called Fox’s sentence “ludicrous,” saying his client “never could be a threat to anyone, including a child.” Fox’s mother, Kathy, said, “He could have killed someone and got less.”

The facts appear to back her up.

I carry no brief for child pornography or anything that remotely smacks of the exploitation of the powerless by the powerful.

But the failure to distinguish between viewers of child pornography and producers of child pornography - like the failure to distinguish between flashers and molesters or sexually active teens and rapists - is an indictment of our criminal justice system.

It is particularly egregious in light of the failure to so much as investigate - much less prosecute, convict and imprison - the Wall Street criminals who destroyed trillions of dollars in middle-class income and equity.

That crime cost millions of jobs and will continue to cripple the U.S. and global economy for years if not decades.

Is what Jon Michael Fox did really so much worse?