Fifth Circuit reverses acquittal in child pornography possession case

In United States v. Smith, the Fifth Circuit reversed the acquittal of a man convicted of possession of child pornography. (No. 12-60988 (5th Cir. 2014).) The district could had determined that "the evidence was insufficient to sustain the verdict," but the appeals court found that the conviction should stand. Twenty-six videos of child pornography had been found on the defendant's computer, and the three suspects were roommates. The prosecution showed that one roommate could not have download the files because she was not using the computer at...

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Featured Paper: “Let’s Have a Look, Shall We?” A Model for Evaluating Suspicionless Border Searches of Portable Electronic Devices

From the December 2013 issue of the UCLA Law Review: Sid Nadkarni, “Let’s Have a Look, Shall We?” A Model for Evaluating Suspicionless Border Searches of Portable Electronic Devices, 61 UCLA L. Rev. 148 (2013). The article has an in-depth discussion of United States v. Cotterman, the border search case out of the 9th Circuit (en banc). Abstract: The Fourth Amendment’s border search doctrine has historically given the U.S.government the right to search, without individualized suspicion, the belongings ofany individual crossing the U.S.border....

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Miss. Supreme Court reverses CP conviction after trial court denied indigent defendant money for expert witness

In Lowe v. State, 2011-CT-00762-SCT (Miss. 2013), the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed and remanded for a new trial the conviction of a man for child pornography crimes because the trial court had denied the defendant's request for funds to hire an expert to help refute the testimony of the state's expert. The defendant was convicted of five counts of exploitation of a child after child pornography was discovered on his computer. He had been found to be indigent, and the trial court appointed him counsel. At trial, the state planned to use...

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CFAA amendments, new criminal statute proposed in Senator Leahy’s bill

On Wednesday, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2014. Senator Leahy’s bill, first introduced back in 2005, intends to "better protect[] Americans from the growing threats of data breaches and identity theft,” according to a press release issued by the Senator. Included within the bill are amendments to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030 ). Senator Leahy stated that the bill “includes the Obama administration’s proposal [full text] to update the Computer Fraud...

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Featured Paper (citing Andrew's note): Confidentiality and the Problem of Third Parties: Protecting Reader Privacy in the Age of Intermediaries

A forthcoming article in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology (Winter 2013 issue) is worth the read: Confidentiality and the Problem of Third Parties: Protecting Reader Privacy in the Age of Intermediaries, written by BJ Ard - a Postdoctoral Associate in Law and Thomson Reuters Fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project. The abstract is in italics, below. In addition to being a well-written article, Ard's piece also cites to Andrew's law review note which was published last year in the Indiana Law Journal. I believe this is the...

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Federal judge expresses frustration over CP defendant's motions

I recently found a case where a federal district court judge decided to express his frustration over a defendant's series of motions and appeals in his written decision. The defendant had been convicted of possession of child pornography and sentenced to 44 months in prison. Judge Charles Kornmann from the District of South Dakota divided into four parts his decision to deny the motion to vacate over an ineffective assistance of counsel argument, concluding: IV. Observation.As one of my Irish uncles told me long ago in jest: "he would complain...

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Looking back on an exciting 2013 at Cybercrime Review

It's been a great year for Cybercrime Review and for many of our authors. Jeffery's posts appeared in a number of law review articles, including the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. Even more impressive was Jeffery's cite in the North Dakota Supreme Court case, In re D.O. In addition to authoring a number of amazing articles, Justin appeared on a number of television segments discussing the the Target black friday hack and a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decision...

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