United States v. Waguespack, No. 18-30813 (5th Cir. 2019)
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The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for knowingly distributing and possessing child pornography. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant of the offenses; the district court did not clearly or obviously violate his Confrontation Clause rights where defendant has not cited, and the court has not found, any case to support defendant's position that the machine-generated materials are statements of a witness or trigger the Confrontation Clause; the government's rebuttal arguments were not improper; and the government did not violate defendant's Brady rights by not disclosing the grand jury transcripts.
The court also held that defendant's sentence was procedurally reasonable and the district court did not clearly err by applying a two-level sentencing enhancement under USSG 3C1.1 for obstruction of justice. Furthermore, defendant's below-Guidelines sentence was substantively reasonable; the district court considered the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) sentencing factors; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing defendant.
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