United States v. Stringer, No. 12-3397 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseDefendant conditionally plead guilty to producing child pornography. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence, as well as the district court's exclusion of evidence that one of the minors involved in defendant's production of child pornography was emancipated at the time the photographs were taken. The court concluded that officers had sufficient grounds to detain defendant until the point at which they developed probable cause for an arrest. Therefore, the duration of the seizure was constitutionally reasonable and the district court correctly refused to suppress evidence based on the length of the encounter. Based on the positive field test of the contact lens case for methamphetamine and the drug dog's alert to defendant's car, the officers had probable cause to search the car. Defendant lacked standing to challenge the search of the cell phone belonging to the underage passenger and the evidence seized from the phone was sufficient to sustain defendant's conviction. The court agreed with the district court that the minor's previous marriage and emancipation were not legal defense to a charge against defendant. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Criminal case - Criminal law. Police officer had objective indicia of possible criminal activity which justified further investigation, including detention of the defendant until a drug dog arrived to search his vehicle; the duration of defendant's seizure was constitutionally reasonable and the district court correctly refused to suppress evidence based on the length of the encounter; defendant lacked standing to challenge the search of a cell phone found in his passenger's bag and the evidence on that cellphone was sufficient to support his conviction for production of child pornography; where a minor depicted in the photos was under the age of 18, the facts of her prior marriage and emancipation were not legal defenses to a charge under 18 U.S.C. sec. 2251(a), and the district court did not err in excluding the evidence of the girl's emancipation on the grounds it would confuse the jury and lend itself to possible jury nullification. [ January 03, 2014
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