Paroline v. United States

The Fifth Circuit erred in holding that defendant, who pled guilty to possessing child pornography, two of which depicted images of the victim here, was liable for said victim’s entire losses from the trade in her images, where: 1) restitution is proper under 18 U.S.C. 2259 only to the extent the defendant’s offense proximately caused a victim’s losses; 2) victims should be compensated and defendants should be held to account for the impact of their conduct on those victims, but defendants should only be made liable for the consequences and gravity of their own conduct, not the conduct of others; and 3) a court should order restitution in an amount that comports with the defendant’s relative role in the causal process underlying the victim’s general losses.