Teresa Sheehan Plaintiff-Appellant v. City And County Of San Francisco…
I. Introduction
The United States Sentencing Commission (“Commission”) was created by Congress to “establish sentencing policies and practices for the Federal criminal justice system” that implement the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (“SRA”), including the purposes of sentencing enumerated at 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2). In establishing such policies and practices, principally 2 through the promulgation of federal sentencing guidelines and policy statements, the Commission’s efforts are guided by the substantive and procedural requirements of the SRA and other congressional sentencing legislation. The SRA directs that the Commission “periodically shall review and revise, in consideration of comments and data coming to its attention, the guidelines.” To this end, the Commission has established a review of the child pornography guidelines as a policy priority for the guidelines amendment cycle ending May 1, 2010. This report is the first step in the Commission’s work on this priority. Congress has been particularly active over the last decade creating new offenses, increasing penalties,