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A man convicted of child porn possession has been fighting to reclaim his personal emails and photos from the government, but so far has been rebuffed by its claims that separating the good and bad files would be too difficult to pursue. A lower court agreed with the government's assessment of the situation, but this has now been overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
As the ruling [pdf link] notes, the lower court failed in its duty to shift the burden of proof from the convicted man to the government.
The panel held that the district court’s decision not to put the burden of proof on the government was legal error, where the defendant filed the Rule 41(g) motion after he pleaded guilty and the government no longer needed his property as evidence. The panel held that the government could not have carried its burden of proof had the district court correctly placed it on the government, where the government failed to submit any evidence of the difficulty and costs of segregating the defendant’s data, which it claimed was a legitimate reason for retention of the non-contraband files.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 10 2015, @05:51AM
As another poster stated, these cases can be used to erode civil liberties. There's a saying among lawyers: "Bad facts make bad law."
There's also the issue that 9 times out of 10 the people are effectively being convicted of thought crime. There was even a case where a guy with anime -- CARTOONS -- that were deemed was charged with (and perhaps convicted of) possessing child porn. There's no fucking victim there at all: it's a drawing!
Most of the people convicted of child porn never touched a kid; they copied pictures off the Internet. Yeah, they violated some kid's privacy, and you're a sicko if you find child molestation arousing, but, as crimes go ... it's certainly less severe than, say, armed robbery, and they get harsher sentences than armed robbers.
Personally? I think people who abuse children should be sentenced harshly. I think people who like to look at children being abused, but don't actually hurt any kids, should be maybe given a slap on the wrist and sentenced to counseling or something. And I also think the FBI and whatnot should spend more of their resources chasing violent criminals and less on persecuting people because they have weird, sick fetishes.
Post anonymously not because I like child porn (I don't) but because planting digital evidence of having child porn is extremely easy and moreover stating this opinion -- even though it's not actually that out there -- is enough to give you a red letter because some people will think you're a monster. I am a coward by doing this; the name fits. But not being a coward is foolhardy in this case.
People throw reason out the window when dealing with kids. They shouldn't.