| D. Illinois [S.D.] |
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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. Courtright, No. 09-2880 (S.D. Ill. 1-13-2011) -- Conviction affirmed -- Defendant was convicted of production, possession, and receipt of child pornography, and was sentenced to life plus ten years in prison. Defendant appealed, arguing that the district court erred by admitting evidence of a prior sexual assault, and by issuing improper jury instructions. In 1998, defendant was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse when it was learned that he photographed a fifteen-year-old girl in sexually explicit poses and digitally penetrated her. In 2007, defendant's MySpace account was discovered during an investigation into the social networking activities of registered sex offenders. The IP address associated with the MySpace account was crosschecked with a federally-maintained database of IP addresses associated with the distribution of child pornography, and a match was found. A search warrant was issued for defendant home, and a subsequent forensics search of defendant's computer revealed numerous child pornography images. Investigators determined that eleven of the images had been transferred directly from a Hewlett-Packard camera to defendant's hard drive. The girl in the images was eventually identified as a fourteen-year-old living with her father in an apartment owned by defendant's parents. She described an assault by defendant that was similar to the one he committed in 1998. Prior to trial, the government informed the judge that it intended to introduce the prior conviction, and the district court admitted the testimony pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 413. The defendant argued that the district court erred, arguing that Rule 413 only permits admission of evidence of a sexual assault when someone is "accused of an offense of sexual assault"; in this case, defendant was not charged or indicted for sexual assault. The district court felt it was sufficient that the second victim accused defendant of sexually assaulting her, but the Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that Rule 413 is limited to instances where sexual assault is actually charged in the indictment. The Court also rejected the government's efforts to admit the evidence under Fed. R. Evid. 404(b), finding that the arguments were incomplete and therefore waived. Nonetheless, the Court concluded that the district court's error in admitting the testimony was harmless, since there was more than ample evidence to convict defendant on the crimes actually charged: production, possession, and receipt of child pornography. The Court also rejected defendant's challenges to the jury instructions. The conviction was affirmed.United States v. Miller, NO. 09-CR-30136-WDS (S.D.Ill. 1-7-2011) -- Motion in Limine Denied -- Defendant was charged with possession, receipt, distribution, and attempted distribution of child pornography. In a pre-trial motion, defendant sought to limit the government from playing anything more than brief excerpts of the alleged contraband, on the grounds that it would take "hours" and be "profoundly disturbing and distressing." The defendant asked the court to limit the number of videos introduced to just 15, and to restrict playback to a few seconds each. The government responded that it would pose voir dire questions intended to limit the potential for prejudice and argued that in any case, showing the videos is not "unfairly" prejudicial. The District Court noted that a key element of the charge is that defendant knowingly distributed, possessed, and received child pornography videos, and the best evidence as to the nature of the charged items are the videos themselves. The Court also concluded that the probative value of the evidence outweighed its obvious prejudicial impact. However, the Court said, the government may not "overwhelm the jury" and would be restricted to presenting a "reasonable representative number of images and videos." Defendant also moved to limit the introduction of "other acts" evidence, including specifically sexually explicit stories involving minors and images found on computers for which he was not charged. The Court noted that charges had been brought based on the additional computers and concluded that the motion was moot (without rendering an opinion on the admission of the explicit stories). |
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