Tenth Circuit US v. Haymond 10-5979

Decision here.

   This decision is pretty straightforward.  Basically, the FBI caught some guy with child porn, he was convicted, he appealed his conviction for various bullshit reasons, and the court of appeals upheld his conviction.  Here are the grounds for Haymond's appeal:

- Haymond's appeal alleged that there was insufficient evidence presented to establish certain elements of the crime against him, such as that he knowingly possessed the specific child porn images that were introduced in evidence against him (the court held the fact that he had obtained the child porn by searching for it on limewire to be sufficient to establish that he knowingly possessed it).

- He claimed that the court had erred in allowing a doctor to render a scientific opinion to the court on whether or not the images depicted children (the 10th didn't decide whether or not the trial court had erred on that, holding that even if the testimony was admitted in error it was harmless because another government witness testified to the actual identities of the children depicted, as well as their ages based on their birth certificates which he had viewed).

- He also challenged the court's jurisdiction over the offense (he was originally charged into federal court, which means that in addition to all the "normal" elements of the crime, the government had to prove that either the computer involved or the images had at some point crossed state lines.  The court held that the government met this burden when they demonstrated in their case that the child porn images had been created in Florida, while Haymond was arrested for possessing them in Oklahoma).

- Haymond claimed that there was no PC in the search warrant (the 10th disagreed with him), and also that the information used to obtain the search warrant was stale because the FBI learned of his child porn in October of 2007, but applied for the warrant in January of 2008 (the court held that since people who are interested in child porn tend to hoard such images, the information was not stale).

   Conviction upheld.