United States v. Polk

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

This appeal requires us to decide whether the fifteen-year mandatory minimum term of imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 2251(e), as applied, violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. For the reasons explained below, we conclude that it does not. Consequently, we affirm the judgment below.

The background facts can be succinctly summarized. The jury supportably could have found that defendant-appellant Byron Polk, over the course of some four months, engaged in online conversations with a person whom he presumed to be a thirteen-year-old girl.…