As former JAG attorneys, we represent military clients all across the world, and we are willing to travel anywhere to represent you.
You need an experienced attorney for your child pornography or exploitation case.
The military has been aggressively prosecuting child pornography cases for years.
Lately, we’ve also been seeing a lot of cases involving the use of the internet or a phone to communicate with – or set up meetings with – minors (or law enforcement agents pretending to be underage). Those cases often lead to child pornography charges as well.
A child pornography allegation is one of the most complex areas of criminal defense. When it comes to defending a child pornography charge under Article 134 of the UCMJ, there is no substitute for experience defending exactly this kind of case. A large part of our practice is dedicated to defending military members – officers and enlisted – against child porn allegations in all service branches:
- Army child pornography
- Air Force child pornography
- Navy child pornography
- Marine Corps child pornography
- Coast Guard child pornography
Military child pornography cases focus on computers and other forms of electronic media such as phones, tablets, external drives and devices, and game systems. Almost always, media forensic science is the key to the case.
The prosecution will always get the free assistance of a computer expert, in addition to the team of special agents who did the investigation. In most cases, the only allies the defendant will have are the defense attorneys and the defense’s own expert in media forensics. To get the most out of working with an expert, and to get the most helpful concessions out of the government’s expert, defense attorneys need to have a strong grasp of computer forensics and the issues that can lead to success at trial.
The government’s expert will rarely, if ever, look for any evidence that the user obtained the child porn files by accident or that someone else was responsible. Defense attorneys and their expert need to know the wide range of issues that can help get an acquittal in a child pornography court martial. The ability to identify these issues only comes through experience.
In addition to computer forensics, child pornography military attorneys need to understand how law enforcement agencies investigate child pornography cases, and child exploitation cases, what traps they use, how they get warrants and conduct child porn searches. In many cases, the prosecution and the government’s expert focus on computer files selected by law enforcement agents. Defense attorneys need to know how these agents are trained in choosing files they think are child pornography, and they need to know how doctors estimate a child’s age by stages of physical development. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is often used to establish information about the minors shown in the files. This information is often the most important aspect of the case, so it’s critically important for defense attorneys know the strict limits of how it can be used in court.
The law regarding child pornography is always changing – in the government, in court, and in the military. Defense attorneys need to stay current on what the courts define as “pornography,” “knowing possession,” and “minors.” These issues get a lot of attention from trial judges and appellate courts, and knowing how to deal with them at trial can either help the defendant during the trial, get an acquittal outrights, or ensure that important issues are able to be raised on appeal.
Trends in sentencing always move in one direction or another, and defense attorneys need to know what those trends are and what developments in social science might be behind those trends. A thorough understanding of these issues can lead to a dramatically lower-than-expected sentence.
In many cases, the defendant’s mental health is an important issue. Mental health conditions can be explored for possible defenses, lessening the degree of guilt, and convincing the court that a light sentence would be more productive than a harsh one.
Whether or not the defendant intends to fight the allegations, developing a plan for sentencing needs to begin long before the case gets to court. The defense attorney needs to be working on three levels at once – computer forensics, legal analysis, and sentence mitigation – throughout the case.
Our military attorneys have been successfully defending child pornography and child exploitation/enticement cases for well over 10 years and we have a well-deserved reputation for getting great court martial outcomes. From many years of doing these cases, we have a strong network of experts in psychology, computer forensics, and law enforcement, and we will be happy to discuss your military child pornography case with you.