Possession Child Pornography

[SandyWho]

State: Alabama
Is it considered "possession" if you have pornographic pictures in your "temporary internet file" that downloaded automatically while visiting a site that originally began as an adult website?

Is one picture on a computer hard drive that downloaded from a website considered possession?

Can you retract a guilty plea if you felt you were coersed by your attorney?

 

[Unhappy-maximus]

Don't know about porno-I think it and people who use it are deplorable. About the retraction of the guilty plea. On this site go to search and read the story of Badrap and see what happened to him. It is reading you should listen to.

 

[SandyWho]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Unhappy-maximus:
Don't know about porno-I think it and people who use it are deplorable. About the retraction of the guilty plea. On this site go to search and read the story of Badrap and see what happened to him. It is reading you should listen to. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[SandyWho]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SandyWho:
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I also think porn is deplorable. I am needing help in this matter regardless of my moral beliefs though. Alot of good info in Badrap's case. Thanks for passing that along to me.

 

[Tracey]

In any possession prosecution, the state must prove knowing & voluntary possession of the contraband item. IF defendant can show that he had no reason to know the site had switched to child porn AND that the "download" was without his permission AND simply clicking on the site does NOT constitute permission AND the defendant deleted the picture as soon as he realized what it was, then defendant has a viable unwitting possession defense.

Retracting a GP is a totally different matter. You have a VERY high standard of proof. You have to prove that the lawyer overbore your will & you would never have pleaded guilty if you'd had a different lawyer who just explained things to you instead of threatening you if you didn't plead guilty. Very few defendants are allowed to retract a GP.

You may also have a claim that the state didn't meet its corpus delicti burden -- was there any proof that the picture was genuine rather than faked? Is the child porn nature readily evident? Given that it's nearly impossible for the average computer user to really really delete a file, can knowing & voluntary possession be proved simply by showing that a picture existed in a temporary internet file folder that gets deleted every time the computer is shut off?

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This is not legal advice and you are not my client. Double check everything with your own attorney and your state's laws.