Calling it the worst day of his judicial career, a judge blasted Congress on Monday before imposing what he called an excessive mandatory 10-year prison sentence on a teenager who distributed child pornography over the Internet.

U.S. District Judge Gerard Lynch said he would have sentenced Jorge L. Pabon Cruz to five years if Congress had not insisted on a punishment more severe than what worse child pornography crimes require and that creates obstacles to rehabilitation.

"It's a bitter and unfortunate sentence. I wish I could do more for you," Lynch told Pabon, a 19-year-old who had been living in Rochester, N.Y., when he enabled distribution of thousands of child porn pictures from September 2001 to December 2001. "With a heavy heart and with a firm conviction that the sentence being imposed is neither just nor the best way to protect society nor the way a humane society should treat a very young person with a terrible problem, I impose the mandatory minimum of 10 years." Full Story...