Defenses To Child Pornography Charges
Child pornography is a serious criminal offense in the state of Ohio. Additionally, the distribution of child pornography is an incredibly serious offense at the federal level as well. The alleged offender runs the risk of facing steep penalties such as years of incarceration and steep fines.
Being arrested for a crime such as child pornography can have a significant impact on a person’s professional and personal life. However, there may be many defenses that are available to someone facing this type of charge.
Ohio Defenses to Child Pornography Charges Attorney
Facing child pornography charges can be stressful. This is why it’s important to retain a skilled defense lawyer if you want to preserve your liberty. With an Ohio child pornography defense lawyer as your advocate, you will have the best legal defenses available to you every stage of the proceedings. Allow Joslyn Law Firm to advocate aggressively on your behalf.
Joslyn Law Firm has years of experience defending many clients facing child pornography charges and sexual exploitation offenses in federal courts across America. If you live in Hamilton County, Butler County, Warren County, Brown County, and Clermont Count, give us a call at (513) 399-6289 to schedule your first consultation.
Information Center
- Good Faith
- Content Is Not Child Pornography
- Educational Or Scientific Purpose
- Unknown Possession
- Wrongful Police Conduct
- Psychological Addiction
- Entrapment
- Additional Resources
Good Faith
Suppose the defendant possesses less than three images of child pornography. It is an affirmative defense to a child pornography possession charge if the defendant responds promptly and in good faith. The response includes taking reasonable steps to destroy each child pornography image or reporting the matter to a law enforcement agency and allowing the agency access to each image. To successfully raise this defense, a defendant must also not retain the child pornography images or allow anyone other than a law enforcement agency to access the child pornography images.
Content Is Not Child Pornography
Federal law defines child pornography explicitly. The illicit content is a visual depiction of children or sexually explicit content featuring children. If the content does not include children, it is not child pornography. It is an affirmative defense if the defendant argues the people shown were adults and no minors were involved. It is not a crime to have adults dress up and play the role of children.
Educational Or Scientific Purpose
Content that has an educational or scientific purpose is not child pornography. For example, a psychology professor may show such depictions to discuss the mental and emotional harm these images have on the actors and viewers. A family law professor may display these images to discuss how having such material can impact child custody or parental rights cases.
Unknown Possession
It is common for a person to possess prohibited material unknowingly and unwillingly. For jurors to convict the defendant, he must have committed the wrongful act “knowingly.” This is defined as doing something with knowledge or awareness of the facts or situation, not because of a mistake, accident, or other innocent reason. If the child pornography image is not the physical or digital property of the defendant, he has not knowingly engaged in the wrongful act.
A defendant may successfully raise this defense if the content is found on a shared computer, such as a work computer. The key to successfully asserting this defense is determining how and when the illegal content was downloaded and establishing that the defendant could not have downloaded the material, thus creating reasonable doubt the defendant knowingly possessed the unlawful image(s).
An unintentional act of possession may arise by accidentally accessing a particular website or receiving email spam that contains the illegal material. A common situation is where a person intends to legally view adult pornographic images but accidentally accesses visual depictions of children.
Wrongful Police Conduct
Over the lifespan of a criminal matter, a law enforcement agency or prosecutor’s office involved in a case may fail to follow proper procedures. Resultingly, it is possible to raise a defense based on procedural errors that violated the defendant’s constitutional rights. For example, incriminating evidence the police obtained by conducting an illegal search may be inadmissible in court. Another example is if officers use an arrest or search warrant they illegally obtained based on false information. It is also common for law enforcement to exceed the scope of a search warrant and obtain incriminating evidence illegally.
Psychological Addiction
Because it is possible to develop an addiction to adult pornography, it certainly is feasible that a person may develop an addiction to child pornography. However, this is not a complete defense as its main use is to help reduce the defendant’s sentence upon conviction. It may also result in treatment instead of incarceration.
Entrapment
Entrapment occurs when law enforcement encourages a person to act criminally when the defendant otherwise would not have committed the crime. The officer must have done more than present the defendant when an opportunity to do something wrong. Rather, the officer must have applied overwhelming pressure that a similarly situated person couldn’t resist.
This defense acknowledges that the offense occurred and that the defendant committed the offense. However, this defense further alleges that the defendant would not have committed the offense but for the influence of law enforcement. This defense is a viable and vital consideration in any criminal matter that involves agents working undercover in a sting operation.
Additional Resources
Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program – This link contains information about the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) program that helps law enforcement agencies develop responses to internet crimes against children.
Project Safe Childhood – This program is a mechanism used by the Department of Justice to counteract the growing problem of child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) – The Children’s Internet Protection Act imposes certain requirements on schools or libraries to prevent children’s access to obscene or harmful content over the Internet.
Ohio Defenses to Child Pornography Charges Lawyer | Joslyn Law Firm
Federal child pornography and sexual exploitation charges are difficult to defend. Thankfully, Joslyn Law Firm has years of experience in successfully representing people across the United States who are charged with possessing, distributing or producing child pornography. A conviction of a crime related to child pornography can have a significant impact on every aspect of your life.
Joslyn Law Firm serves the greater Cincinnati area including nearby counties such as Hamilton County, Butler County, Warren County, Brown County, and Clermont County. To schedule your first consultation with Joslyn Law Firm, call (513) 399-6289.
