Articles Posted in Computer crimes

In United States v. Blouin, ARMY 20101135 (A. Ct. Crim. App. 28 May 2014), the court has, in my view, taken a broader view of what qualifies as CP for the purpose of a guilty plea. However, the court is not taking an unknown or unvisited trail. Blouin was charged with possessing CP in violation…

Here is an interesting opinion from the Sixth about the reasonable expectation of privacy in items transmitted or available through Limewire (or similar P2P programs). There is none, compared to other ways stuff gets onto a computer – in the Sixth. Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer from police accessing it…

SCOTUSBlog has a podcast of today’s oral argument.

FederalEvidence blog has a good post on United States v. Caldwell, __ F. 3d ___ (5th Cir. October 26, 2009). For those of us doing a lot of CP cases – LimeWire, one of several peer-to-peer file sharing programs, is increasingly found to be the method by which CP is received or transmitted. Typically the…

NMCCA has issued an unpublished opinion in United States v. Davis, III, NMCCA 200900137 (N.M.C. Ct. Crim. App. 8 September 2009). The case addresses the often perplexing issue of prosecutorial overcharging in CP cases. In this case the prosecution charged the CP under Article 134(1)(2) and (3), UCMJ. The court does note that some overcharging…

CA Court of Appeals provides guidelines for “knowing posession”. In People v. Michael James Tecklenburg, (2009, 169 Cal. App. 4th 1402) the California Court of Appeals considered the relevance and applicability of involuntary “pop-ups” and temporary Internet files (TIF or “cache”) to the applicable statute. California’s Penal Code section 311.11(a) makes it illegal to “knowingly…

A search warrant for drugs and possible records of drug sales did not permit officers to enter defendant’s computer where the execution of the warrant produced no evidence of drug sales on the premises. (There was also a Franks violation because the officer represented a neighbor’s report of drug use and drug sales, but the…

United States v. Brobst, 558 F. 3d 982 (9th Cir. 2009), is primarily a search and seizure case. But here is a tantalizing piece about double jeopardy in a child pornography case. In light of this court’s decisions in United States v. Davenport, 519 F.3d 940 (9th Cir. 2008) and United States v. Giberson, 527…

ACCA issued published opinion today finding error and granting relief in United States v. Amazaki, ARMY 20070676 (A. Ct. Crim. App. March 31, 2009). We hold, as a matter of due process, appellant was not on fair notice that his conduct, arising from simply negligent possession of child pornography, violated Article 133, UCMJ, under the…

As a defense counsel you can learn a lot from the prosecutors. Here is a APRI monograph which explains emails and how to maybe identify who has been sending them. This type of information is as equally useful to the defense counsel as to the prosecutor. The reverse of course works for prosecutors. Make Sun…