I am not saying receipt and distribution should not be a crime. But, again, the crime on the books has a statutory maximum of 20 years. That is more than enough leeway for a judge to distinguish between, say, a 40-year-old miscreant with a history indicating that prison time is warranted and an immature 22-year-old who drifted into shameful behavior and needed supervision and psychiatric help rather than prison. It is more than enough leeway for a judge to distinguish between young people who are trafficking in images for money (and therefore are consciously contributing to the market that drives production) and those who collect because they’re titillated and desensitized (and may not appreciate the connection between their consumption and the abuse of children by producers).

It’s not soft on porn to call for sensible line-drawing. Plenty of hard-nosed prosecutors and Republican-appointed judges have long believed that this mandatory minimum is too draconian. Moreover, judges and prosecutors generally need no convincing to enforce the harsher mandatory minimums that Congress has prescribed against hands-on child abusers and producers of child pornography. But the receipt and distribution sentencing provisions are so heavy-handed that judges and lawyers end up engaging in the unsavory practice of “fact-pleading” — i.e., ignoring facts that suggest the defendant was up to more than simple possession in order to avoid triggering the mandatory minimum. That is an abuse of process, but it allows for a reasonable sentence, which may well be a non-prison sentence, with the proviso that it could turn into prison if the offender recidivates.