When someone has been charged with a crime, the collection and analysis of evidence becomes extremely important. Because an examination of the evidence could be the difference between a conviction and freedom it is imperative that defendants have access to the evidence to conduct their own examinations of it. This is providing to be a bit difficult for one man who is facing 45 felony counts of possessing child pornography in Gwinnett County.
The difficulty has to do with the request of the defense to examine that evidence at a location that is off-site. The defense wants to use its own equipment to conduct tests on the seized material and transporting that equipment each day to the district attorney’s office is not a practical option. It is seeking to utilize specialized forensic testing to determine several things such as: whether the images seized were digitally created or true images, who was previously in possession of the images and how the defendant came to be in possession of them.
Permission to conduct the tests off-site was granted by a Gwinnett Superior Court Judge. The problem however is that despite the order making the off-site examination possible, there is the possibility that in doing so, the defense could be found in violation of federal laws having to do with the possession and distribution of child pornography. Thus far, none of the U.S. attorney’s offices located in the state of Georgia have guaranteed that moving the evidence to an off-site location would not place the defendant, his attorneys and the computer forensics expert in violation of that federal criminal law.
As a result of not receiving those assurances, the defendant is seeking to have the case dismissed. The basis for this request is the lack of due process concerning his right to review the case’s evidence. Without the assurance of due process in criminal cases the right to a fair trial is in jeopardy. This is something all Americans should be concerned about.
Source: The Daily Report, “Image access sought in porn case,” Mark Niesse, Sept. 20, 2012