United States v. Juhic, No. 19-1151 (8th Cir. 2020)
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The Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for transportation and receipt of child pornography. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing defendant's request for a court appointed expert to examine a law enforcement agent's laptop under Federal Rule of Evidence 706. In this case, defendant presented no evidence in support of his theory that ransomware on the agent's laptop planted child pornography on defendant's laptop.
The court also held that the district court did not err in refusing to allow defendant to present his innocent intent theory to the jury; any error in admitting the notations on the computer-generated reports was harmless; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's request for a jury recess after a juror informed the court she was suffering from a migraine, was provided pain medicine, and then no longer appeared to be in pain.
Court Description: [Erickson, Author, with Colloton and Shepherd, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's request for a court appointed expert to examine the investigating agent's laptop as there was no reason to believe such an examination would support defendant's theory that ransomware on the agent's laptop planted child pornography on defendant's laptop; no error in refusing to permit defendant to present an "innocent intent" defense; admission of computer-generated reports on the files offered by defendant's peer-to-peer account was harmless error in light of the other evidence in the case; the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's request for a jury recess after a juror informed the court she was suffering from a migraine as she was provided items to alleviate her symptoms and she told the court she could continue.
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