Under Arizona law, I would be required to send a man to prison for 290 years.

I have participated in hundreds of sentencing hearings in my 44-year career as a prosecutor and judge.

Most of the sentences imposed were within a range that I considered appropriate given the crime committed and the defendant's previous history.

Occasionally the law provided for an excessive punishment which I had to impose.

By far the most egregious example of excessive sentencing that I have ever had to impose occurred in 2007. The defendant, Carl Ray Buske, was a 47-year-old aircraft mechanic with no prior criminal record other than a 15-year-old drug possession conviction.

His crime: possession of 29 printed images of child pornography.

I had to sentence him to 290 years

Buske neither created, sold nor passed on the images to third parties.

However, Arizona state law required that his sentence for each image be at least ten years, with each sentence to be served consecutively—that is, one on top of the other—for a total sentence of 290 years in prison.