U.S. v. Modjewski

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 15-year term of incarceration on possession and transportation of child pornography charges, where said sentence was based in part on Dist. Ct.’s own extensive examination and disagreement with defendant’s expert, who opined that defendant was not pedophile. Dist. Ct. was not required to recuse herself based on her own extensive knowledge about pedophilia, which, according to defendant, led Dist. Ct. to unfairly reject opinion of his expert, since: (1) extensive questioning by court will rarely be viewed as prejudicial to criminal defendant where, as here, there was no jury; and (2) defendant failed to show any favoritism by Dist. Ct. in her 11 minute questioning of his expert. Moreover, information that Dist. Ct. knew about child exploitation was available to general public. Also, while Dist. Ct. erred in finding that defendant had exhibited pedophilic identification since said finding was not based on any expert opinion contained in record, no reversible error occurred since it was unlikely that Dist. Ct. would have issued different sentence in absence of such finding.