On the recordFebruary 11, 2015
the bill before us proves the axiom that big things come in small packages. This bill, the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act, may only be several pages long, but it is a very big bill. In 1994, by enacting the Violence Against Women Act, Congress required that defendants who commit certain crimes pay restitution to their victims. I had a lot to do with that bill. These are crimes--such as the sexual exploitation of children--that have a particularly devastating impact on victims, and they need help to put their lives back together. Last year, in a case titled ``Paroline v. United States,'' the Supreme Court concluded that the restitution statute cannot provide the restitution that Congress promised for child pornography victims. The only way to fix this problem is to amend the restitution statute in a way that accounts for the insidious and evil nature of child pornography itself. The Supreme Court held in Paroline that under the statute as currently written, a victim can seek restitution only for losses that are directly related to an individual defendant's distribution or possession of specific images of her abuse. That is not only virtually impossible to prove, but it pretends that defendants and images are isolated and self-contained. The truth is that in the Internet age, defendants are part of a growing, shifting, and constantly active group of individuals who keep the victimization going.…
