somerset wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:36 pm
Maybenaut wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:57 pm
Off Topic
I wish I could say I’m shocked, but I’m not. I’ve lost count of the number of clients I’ve represented who were charged with child pornography offenses. I once attended a CLE in the military where the keynote speaker was an federal prosecutor. He asked, by show of hands, how many of the 450 or so present in the auditorium had represented a military member charged with certain crimes. A few hands went up for murder, more for rape. When he got to child pornography, just about every hand went up.
Off Topic
Is this because child pornography is so common, or because prosecutors overzealously charge?
I could see it either way. I have an old colleague who was arrested and convicted of child pornography a couple of years ago, and he was last person I would have expected to be involved with this. On the other hand, a vacation photograph of my (then) 14 year old daughter in a bathing suit at the beach once caused a co-worker to warn me about having inappropriate images on my work computer.
It is extremely common, and I don’t think prosecutors are overcharging. Most of my clients possessed images numbering in the tens of thousands. The ones that only had a few took the pictures themselves.
I haven’t looked at the federal statute in a while (Congress finally got around to amending the UCMJ to include child pornography, so the military no longer charges under the federal statute). But back then you had to possess three or more images (the idea, I think, was that one or two images could be explained as accident, but three...). I think that’s still true, but I’m not positive. And the images had to be a “lascivious exhibition of the genitals,” which was not defined in the statute. So a federal district court came up with a definition (now known as the “Dost factors”), and as far as I know, those factors have been adopted pretty much universally. A picture of your daughter at the beach or kids in a bathtub likely wouldn’t meet the definition. But the Dost factors themselves are problematic (I could write a treatise).
It scares me to think how prevalent this is. I’ve represented lowly enlisted members and senior military officers alike. It’s a pretty easy crime to commit, and people can get away with it if they’re careful (which is how they end up with so many images). But if they’re caught, it’s difficult factually to defend. In most cases the images speak for themselves.
When I was on active duty a guy (O-5) came in all indignant because he thought his right to privacy had been invaded when the military set up a camera in a bull-pen to see who was downloading child pornography on a shared computer. All the military wanted to do was boot him out (he wasn’t yet retirement eligible, but he was close). I was like, Dude, if you fight this, they’ll take you to court-martial and you’ll lose and go to prison, and might have to register as a sex offender depending on your state, but it’s up to you. This guy honestly didn’t see what the big deal was.
"Hey! We left this England place because it was bogus, and if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, pronto, we'll just be bogus too!" -- Thomas Jefferson
Philly Boondoggle
to get her bangs that high ... in the mid80's. 
