Charging each image separately does not violate Double Jeopardy
On Friday, in Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeals, ruled that charging a criminal defendant with separate counts for each image did not violate the constitutional prohibition of being “twice put in jeopardy” for “the same offense.”
In Taylor v. State the defendant was charged with over fifty different counts for over 50 different images. Each count identifying a separate image. He was sentenced to just under 20 years in prison. He appealed, arguing the multiple counts for the same act (possession of CP) constituted double jeopardy. The appellate court, however, ruled that because each count identified a separate image, it did not constitute double jeopardy.
Since most people arrested for possession of CP possess multiple images, it is generally characteristic of the offense, rather than unusual. The result is that the prosecution, if they chose to, can really nail you for offense.
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The whole registration trope is nothing more than a shame scam to funnel federal funds into state law enforcement coffers.
One count of rape could involve oral sex followed by penetration lasting for an hour. Forty counts of possession of child pornography could be issued to a father of a sixteen year old boy whose girlfriend emailed his son naked selfies, even if no one ever looked at the images!
A problem with these sentencing guidelines is that it causes an increase in sexual images of children to be available. Since child pornography is perceived to be such a heinous crime, our government feels it is important to distribute thousands of sexual images of children. In 2016 and other years, the FBI shared thousands of child porn images on a government-run website. This allowed the government to arrest men interested in child pornography and also allowed women to frame their husbands for this crime. Imagine if it was exposed that in order to arrest users of drugs, our government distributed heroin.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/01/21/fbi-ran-website-sharing-thousands-child-porn-images/79108346/
It would be a wonderful thing for a tech savvy individual or individuals to send politicians, law enforcement leadership & lawmakers embedded image emails with undeniably criminal images & then call in the feds. Let us be ridiculous with this registry garbage in the most malicious way possible. Put everyone on the registry.
If you follow this logic then if a person arrested for possession of marijuana with multiple packages than they could be charged with separate charges for each package. 50 small packages of pot = 50 counts of possession. That’s crazy. I’m not an attorney but curious if it could be pursued to the Fla SC with this argument?
That’s how people wind up with multiple charges of possession with intent to sell and distribute. Any way law enforcement can trump up charges, they will. If you throw enough poo at a wall, something is going to stick, no matter how ridiculous.
I dunno the exact details of the particular case above, however I believe this link should’ve been applied here. If the state did not label each offense with separate dates and this guy showed that these were all the product of one criminal act then yes, his convictions are most certainly Double Jeopardy.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/fl-district-court-of-appeal/1689451.html
Btw, I am not condoning the consumption of cp or anything related to it. BUT, actions like this by the State/Courts offend me. It’s madness.
Btw, big apologies to anyone viewing that link on mobile. That sites ads are horribly placed.
The case # is as follows:
Cocking v. State, 154 So.3d 1198(2015).
I refreshed my memory with this particular case and note that it’s different in that Cocking was arguing ineffective counsel for not addressing the double Jeopardy issue not for separate acts like this case noted by FAC, but d. j. due to the images being discovered during one search.
Florida law.. . Sigh.
Always has seemed to me to be a terrible way to treat that crime. From what I’ve seen in the past, prosecutors use the threat of charging for each image in order to obtain a plea. Same reason they almost always overcharge to begin with.