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Reminder: These case digests are provided for informational purposes only, and do not constitute legal advice. Anyone conducting legal research on a particular topic or in a specific jurisdiction is advised to supplement these materials with their own efforts or those of a qualified attorney whom they have hired for that purpose.2011United States v. Poulin, No. 10-1126 (1st Cir. 1-7-2011) -- Conviction Affirmed -- Defendant was convicted of production of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) and appealed. In 1999, defendant moved in with a woman and her six children in a home in Maine. One of the children was a 13-year-old girl. Shortly after moving in, defendant began buying "covert camera equipment" from SpyShop2000, located in Houston, Texas. Over a period of years, defendant used the equipment to take secret videos and photographs of the girl. In 2006, the mother discovered four DVDs on the ground outside a cabin she used with defendant. The DVDs contained images of her daughter. The police discovered a variety of camera equipment in the cabin, recording devices and other equipment in a box in the attic of his mother's home (all of which was manufactured overseas), and nearly 50 DVDs containing hundreds of hours of sexually-explicit footage of the young girl, as well as a friend who had visited the family one summer. Defendant raised two arguments on appeal: 1) that the videos were for his own "personal fetish" and were never intended to be distributed, and therefore had no impact on interstate commerce; and 2) that the government failed to show that he actually "produced" sexually explicit images of a minor that traveled in interstate commerce. First, the Court of Appeals noted that both facial and as-applied challenges to the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) have been rejected; taken in the aggregate, the Court said, child pornography has a substantial impact on interstate commerce and therefore may be legitimately regulated by Congress. Since the defendant's conduct was within the activity prohibited by Congress, the personal nature of it is irrelevant. The Court also rejected defendant's second argument that the government failed to show when "production" occurred, or successfully linked a particular image to a specific recording device. Congress, the Court said, intended a generally-understood definition of the word "produced," the Court said, and not the hyper-technical distinction offered by defendant. Likewise, a factfinder could reasonably have concluded from all the evidence introduced at trial -- including witnesses who testified that defendant admitted taping the girl -- that the defendant used the equipment seized to "produce" the sexually explicit images, even though the recording equipment was located separately from the camera equipment. The conviction was affirmed.2010U.S. v. Bach, No. 09-2603 (1st Cir. 8-5-2010) [Unpublished] -- Defendant entered a conditional plea of guilty to one count of possession of child pornography and filed an appeal challenging various District Court rulings. Specifically, defendant argued that the search of his computer was invalid for three reasons: 1) the search was involuntary; 2) the search began before he gave consent; and 3) the search went beyond the scope of his permission. The Court of Appeals reviewed the District Court's factual findings and affirmed in all respects.2009
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