Name: Paul H. Murray
Case: United States v. Murray No. 99-0303
Argued November 10, 1999
Plea: Not Guilty
Charges: Possessing Child Pornography
Military Branch: U.S. Air Force
Listed In National Sex Offenders Registry? NO
A general court-martial composed of a military judge sitting alone convicted appellant, contrary to his pleas, of 1 specification of unlawful receipt of sexually explicit depictions of minors from the Internet, a violation of 18 USC § 2252(a)(2), as incorporated under Article 134, Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 USC § 934. Appellant was sentenced to a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 10 months, and reduction to pay grade E-1. The convening authority approved the sentence as adjudged. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the findings and sentence in an unpublished opinion.
In May 1996, appellant experienced problems with his computer and brought it back several times to the retailer for repairs. During the third repair session, the owner of the shop discovered a sexually explicit picture of a child on appellant’s computer and alerted the police, who arrested appellant when he arrived to claim the computer.
When questioned by the arresting officer, appellant admitted to having about 100 sexually explicit pictures on his computer, including 5 to 25 which featured minors. Appellant also admitted to knowing that sexually explicit pictures featuring children under the age of 18 would be illegal. He explained to the investigator, and at trial, that he acquired the pictures featuring minors accidentally, while downloading adult pornography, and that he deleted the images as soon as he became aware of their nature, which was upon opening the downloaded files. He also testified that the file names did not alert him to the possibility that the images might contain child pornography.
Appellant’s practice was to access Internet newsgroups, choose files that appeared interesting based on their names, download the files, and move them to a directory named "WINSX" on his computer. This evidence, especially the conscious segregation of the downloaded files into a separate directory, rebuts appellant’s contention that he accidentally received the illegal images
Appellant admitted visiting newsgroups entitled "PRETEEN" and "LOLITA" and noted that the pictures of minors were obtained from the latter newsgroup. A witness with expertise in computer crimes verified that these newsgroup names, and many others indicative of child pornography themes, had been found in files associated with appellant’s newsgroup browser program.
An investigator searched appellant’s computer and found 61 images believed to contain child pornography. Some of these images had been deleted and were recovered by the investigator; others were still in active space on the hard drive. The investigator also discovered Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) with descriptive file names for the images appellant had downloaded. Many of these URLs still had graphics files associated with them. Forty-four of the images were deemed by the military judge to contain sexually explicit depictions featuring children under 18 USC § 2252 and were admitted into evidence.
We affirm the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals and find that there is sufficient evidence of record to support appellant’s conviction for knowingly receiving child pornography from the Internet, in violation of 18 USC § 2252(a)(2).
Crim. App. No. 32670, Argued November 10, 1999, Decided April 6, 2000
An Unofficial Site
Of
United States Military
Sexual Offender
Conviction Records
Not Associated With The U.S. Military Or Government
An Unofficial Site
Of United States Military
Sexual Offender
Conviction Records
Not Associated With The U.S. Military Or Government
Paul H. Murray
Technical Sergeant U.S. Airforce
Convicted Sex Offender
Possessing Child Pornography
