The Prosecutor Recommends the Maximum Sentence
Excerpts from the prosecutor's sentencing report:
History and Characteristics of the Defendant
Perhaps unsurprisingly, we know very little about the defendant beyond the fact that he is a healthy, well- educated, 26-year-old man from Changzhou, China. Very surprisingly however, defendant’s mother and father – according to the defendant – who teaches simplified Chinese to adults and is a “street manager,” respectively, manage to pay for the defendant’s pursuit of a master’s degree in agricultural engineering, pay off his credit cards monthly, and provide the defendant with a monthly allowance of $4,000.
Remarkably, the defendant’s history and characteristics are nearly identical to those of two young men from China similarly convicted in 2020 in the Southern District of Florida. Unfortunately, an analysis of what little the United States knew of these two men and knows of the defendant, only gives rise to more questions than it does provide any answers or explanations.
Need for Just Punishment
As the full extent of the defendant’s intention and culpability will likely never be known, divining a proportionally just punishment is difficult. But given the extreme threat to national security posed by even a strict-scrutiny analysis of his conduct, there is a need for some punishment of the defendant here, especially considering that but for the defendant’s drone fortuitously getting stuck in a tree, his crimes would have gone completely unpunished.
Deterrence
The two types of deterrence at issue are general and specific. On the issue of general deterrence, the public must have confidence that the activities of the defendant are treated with the utmost seriousness. The public must look at the actions of the defendant; using a drone to unlawfully photograph a restricted location without prior authorization, and know that such conduct commands a significant consequence. The value of life, of crime free communities, and of societal stability are expressed in the sentence assigned to the defendant. Those inclined to consider committing crimes like those of the defendant must be made to pause and think of the consequences that follow.
Second only to the serious nature and circumstances of the offense, general deterrence is critically important here. With the ever-growing threats posed by drone use and woefully lacking countermeasures to proactively prohibit such uses, we must ensure that individuals are deterred in the first instance. Given the likelihood of the defendant’s removal from the United States, specific deterrence is largely irrelevant here. However, the United States of course hopes that whatever sentence this Honorable Court imposes will serve to specifically deter the defendant from any future criminal conduct in the future.
Need to Protect Society
A thriving society relies upon the safety, security, and freedom provided by its government and military as well as a general respect for the Rule of Law and the enforcement thereof. The defendant’s conduct here potentially threatens all of those critical aspects of society and must be considered accordingly.
(Note: The prosecutor submitted multiple exhibits (documents and graphics) supporting his argument that even a small drone the size of a
mini 3 poses significant threat and illegal flights and pilots must be stopped).
Avoiding Sentencing Disparities
The United States’ recommendation of 6 months would not create any unwarranted sentencing disparities here. However, a sentence below 6 months arguably would. As referenced above, the Southern District of Florida case of United States v. Yuhao Wang, et al. provides the most similar and contemporaneous comparator for analysis.
(Wang and Zhang, were both Chinese nationals in the United States as students. They were charged with 6 counts of the unlawful photographing of a designated installation without authorization, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 795, and 1 count of unlawfully entering a military, naval, or Coast Guard property, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1382. They pled guilty and were sentenced to 9 and 12 months).
