United States v. Chance York -Northern District of Ohio at Akron
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed
The Sixth Circuit affirmed Chance York’s 120-month sentence for possession, receipt, and distribution of child pornography. The court rejected York’s procedural challenge to the five-level enhancement, reiterating Sixth Circuit precedent that applies the Sentencing Guidelines’ commentary ‘75:1 Rule,’ counting each video as 75 images, and found the sentence substantively reasonable.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
How to count videos as “images” under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(7) when determining the number-of-images enhancement for child-pornography offenses.
Circuit Positions
Apply Sentencing Guidelines commentary’s 75:1 Rule (one video = 75 images) under Kisor/Auer deference.
Reject 75:1 Rule; interpret ‘image’ textually as each frame of the video (frame-by-frame counting).
Conflict Summary
The Sixth Circuit defers to the Guidelines commentary and applies the so-called 75:1 Rule, treating every video as 75 images. The Eleventh and Third Circuits, relying on Judge Larsen’s concurrence in Phillips, reject deference to the commentary and interpret the term “image” textually to mean each individual video frame, leading to a frame-by-frame count rather than a flat 75-image conversion.