United States v. Halverson

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The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence after he pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography. The court held that the district court erred by adding a five-level enhancement under USSG 2G2.2(b)(3)(B) for distributing in exchange for any valuable consideration, but not for pecuniary gain. In this case, the district court erred by applying the court's holding in United States v. Groce, 784 F.3d 291 (5th Cir. 2015), instead of an intervening amendment of the Guidelines. However, the procedural error was harmless because the record reflected that the district court would have imposed the same sentence with a significant downward variance in light of his age and his lack of criminal history. The court also held that the district court did not err by awarding $50,317.00 of restitution to six known victims; the district court did not err by denying an additional one-level reduction to defendant's base offense level for acceptance of responsibility; and defendant's special condition of supervised release, preventing access to the internet, survived plain-error review. View "United States v. Halverson" on Justia Law