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"Accidental" Download Sending 22-Year-Old Man To Prison
An anonymous reader writes "Two years ago, Matthew White searched Limewire for porn. He was looking for 'College Girls Gone Wild,' but ended up downloading some images of child pornography. This was accidental, according to White, and he quickly deleted the images. A year later, the FBI showed up on his family's doorstep and asked to search the computer. After thorough sleuthing, the FBI found some images 'deep within the hard drive.' According to White, the investigators agreed that he himself could not have accessed the files anymore. Matthew now faces 20 years in jail for possession of child pornography. On advice from his lawyer, he intends to plead guilty so that he will 'hopefully' end up with 3.5 years in jail, 10 years probation and a registration as a sex offender. 'The FBI could not comment on this specific case, but said if child pornography is ever downloaded accidentally, the user needs to call authorities immediately. They may confiscate your computer, but it's better than the alternative.'"
Absolutely ridiculous
What's a district attorney to do when someone anonymously sends the D.A. an email with kiddie porn attached? Technically, the D.A. downloaded it.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
"Oh HAI, I just downloaded some kiddie pron... by mistake of course you understand"
yeah, I can see that one working out well...
Matt is pleading guilty on the advice of his public defender in hopes of getting a three and a half year sentence.
In other words, he doesn't have the money to actually fight this.
DO NOT CALL THE AUTHORITIES
Worst idea ever. If you actually have undeleted CP on your computer you will get 20 years.
The only safe thing to do is destroy the hard drive.
Oh and the advice of going to the FBI is stupid. Don't talk to the police!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
'The FBI could not comment on this specific case, but said if child pornography is ever downloaded accidentally, the user needs to call authorities immediately.'
At which point you've just confessed to trafficking in child porn. No, the proper thing to do is have a secure file deletion utility to nuke all evidence on your system.
Child porn has just become way too much of a boogeyman these days. Even if he had downloaded the images to look at - what harm would it have caused? He didn't ruin some girls life by looking at pictures that already exist.
Personally, just to get around stupid cases like this, I'd say that simple POSSESSION of child pornography shouldn't even be illegal. The point is the harm done to the actual children. By that token PRODUCTION should be illegal as that's when the harm is done. BUYING it (through cash or barter) should also be illegal as it finances production of more material. Other than that? Having a picture or video on your hard drive hurts no one, and it isn't going to turn someone into a stark raving mad child molester anymore than playing GTA turns them into a murderer.
If simple possession were not against the law then every one of these borderline gray area cases like this would go away.
In my opinion, it's irrelevant whether or not he downloaded the images on purpose. The connection between downloading an image off of limewire and the sexual abuse of a child is so tenuous it's absurd. The only way people can justify it is to make up crazy hypotheticals and market demand theories which are used in no other context.
The summary states that if you accidentally download kiddie porn you need to call the cops asap. Typically, people who are guilty or trying to hide something don't call the cops on themselves.
Yes but the summary also states that accidentally downloading child porn will get you 22 years in prison.
No thank you, I will not be calling the cops to have myself sent to prison for 22 years for not doing anything wrong.
The law makes no distinction if the child porn you possess was obtained accidentally or intentionally.
Its just like buying a used car from a drug dealer and going across a border checkpoint.. The sniffing dogs smell some dope that got stashed underneath the seat and YOU are the one who gets put in prison.
I'm not a libertarian but even I can see how utterly broke and immoral the system has become to get to such a point.
Calling the cops is a complete gamble. The cops will likely say "you have child porn, I am required to arrest you and charge you with possession, you can explain it to the judge".
Best thing to do is a low-level multi-pass format, or a new HD. But that is if you *know* that you downloaded CP. If you don't know, cops may bust down your door some months later, seize your computer, then charge you once they find a thumbnail in some cache folder that was deleted 4 months ago.
This is were the Internet shows its evil side.
There was no internet in 1692.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
No, this is where HUMANITY shows its evil side.
And frankly, and I say this as Democrat, Huckabee's decision wasn't wrong. 100+ years for the crimes was crazy. Even letting him out via parole wasn't unreasonable.
He then apparently went crazy. Actual mental illness, which he didn't have any sign of when they were letting him out.
The point he should been locked up is when he ended up in police custody again a while back. It would have been nice if someone had noticed he was batshit insane at that time, held a competency hearing, and locked him up on that while he was helped.
But we stopped caring about the mentally ill in this society a while back.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Most juries are pretty smart - I was on one, and the few dumbasses among the jury candidates were all weeded out. They are made up of the average joe citizen and despite what you may think, you yourself ARE the average joe citizen. You are not a legal expert, but you are a reasonably intelligent person perfectly able to recognize most bullshit when you hear it.
Also, the requirements for conviction are note "I think you dunnit", they are things like A.)Intended to possess child porn, B.)actively sought out child porn, C.)actually did keep child porn in his position for a reasonable period of time. There may be more for child porn, but those are similar to the types of requirements for the felony theft case I sat on.
Furthermore, the judge makes it very clear that you must believe each one of those criteria beyond a reasonable doubt. That's not "I'm pretty sure it's true", that's "There is no reasonable alternative". It also applies to each one individually, 2 out of 3 doesn't cut it. It does not mean it is impossible for it to have happened differently, it just means there is no other reasonable alternative. If there IS an alternative, and it is reasonable, there is no option but to aquit. You may be certain he did it, but his guilt has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Last but certainly not least, jurors are definitely aware that, with the stroke of a pen they are sending a man to jail for years. You are influencing the future of a man's life with this action, and it is not taken lightly. Even a case where a guy might get off in 6 months with good behavior, it's still heavy.
Certainly innocent people go to jail, even with all of this. Evidence can be looked at more than one way, and sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. If the truth of what happened doesn't seem possible, the defendant is in jeopardy. But the odds are stacked against this, and are system is designed to prefer letting an innocent go free than sending a guilty man to jail.
That's why I think this guy is full of shit. If what he says is the full truth, a third grader could keep him out of prison. A lawyer, even a public defender, doesn't tell you to take a plea unless he thinks you are screwed, and he certainly wouldn't think that if all this guy did were accidentally download a kiddy porn pic. Hell if what he said were true he could go to court, plead not guilty, and just sit there the entire trial, with no representation and never saying a word and the jury would almost certainly find him not guilty.
In fact, if that deleted download were all they had against him, the Grand Jury would not have thought there was enough evidence to go to trial, and would have told the prosecuters to go pound sand.
That he is pleading guilty instead of defending himself, especially when there hasn't been a plea bargain, tells me that he is guilty as sin and just trying to mitigate the damage by playing the victim.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller