Posted by: Frederick Lane
on 10 February 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).<
