Wright v. United States

Issue: Whether, under the Mandatory Restitution for Sexual Exploitation of Children Statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2259, (1) the victim’s losses must be proximately caused by the defendant’s offense conduct to qualify for restitution under § 2259; (2) the restitution is limited to those losses caused by the conduct underlying the offense of conviction, as required by Hughey v. United States; (3) the conduct underlying the petitioner’s offense of conviction – possessing at least one of the victim’s images by downloading it from the Internet onto his computer without the victim’s knowledge – satisfy the causal connection required for the imposition of $529,611 in restitution; 18 U.S.C. § 3664(h) authorizes the imposition of joint and several liability for restitution on unrelated defendants in different cases in different judicial districts, and can the mechanism of joint and several liability be used to avoid determining the specific loss caused by the specific possessor of child pornography.

Judgment: Vacated and remanded on April 28, 2014.