teen burglars steal CDs, find child porn, take it to police

[Liberal_in_LA]

Burglars report victim's pornography to police

Burglars who broke into a Merced property and found a stash of child pornography called police, who arrested the owner.

Kraig Stockard, 54, of Delhi, Calif., was charged with possession of child pornography after a 19-year-old and a juvenile broke into his barn and stole about 50 CDs they thought were blank, according to NBC4LA, citing a statement from Deputy Tom MacKenzie of the Merced County Sheriff's Department.

When the thieves downloaded the discs, they discovered the child porn, the statement said.

The burglars went straight to police, even though they knew they would be admitting burglary.


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/10/burglars-report-victims-pornography-to-police.html

[bighughdiehl]

1. Well.....

when what you steal is soooo disturbing.

[Confusious]

2. Who says there is no honor among thieves?

At least the petty thieves.

I still say there is no honor among bankers.

[Archae]

3. Even money the teens get 3 times the time in jail.

I've seen it far too often, a 45-60 year old with child porn is said to be a "pillar of the community," and gets probation, or a couple years at most.

[11 Bravo]

4. Hell, he may not even be convicted. The evidence obtained by the theft is clearly inadmissable.

[Xithras]

5. True, but there's more. That article is poorly written.

After they went to the police, a warrant was obtained and the police searched the guys house. Once there, they found more child porn on additional disks and on his computer. When they were questioning him, he also admitted that the disks and porn were his, and that he'd been downloading it for years.

The police have plenty of evidence on this guy without using the originally stolen disks. Unless his lawyer can somehow get a judge to declare the that warrant invalid and quash any other evidence they found, he's screwed.

[11 Bravo]

9. I would bet that a competent lawyer could argue that the warrant was obtained via ...

"fruit of the poisoned tree". I'd like to see the guy sent away, but I'm just not sure it's in the cards.

[Xithras]

11. I don't think so.

The "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine is mostly oriented toward Constitutional rights violations by the government, and not criminal activity by private citizens. As examples:

1) Burglar sneaks in through a back window, finds someone carving up a body, and calls the police. The police kick in the door and catch the guy red-handed with his victim. Any collected evidence would be admissible because the police actions and evidence collection occurred because of a private citizen tip. The burglar did not infringe on his constitutional rights, and the police acted in response to a citizen complaint of a serious crime in progress.

2) Person vanishes, and police officer starts randomly kicking in doors around the neighborhood to see if he can find the missing person. After kicking in one door, he finds the body of the missing person being carved up by the killer. They catch the guy red handed. In this case, most (if not all) of the evidence would be THROWN OUT, because the police officer had neither suspicion nor cause to start randomly searching people's homes. A constitutional rights violation would have occurred, and any evidence collected would be the "fruit of the poisoned tree".


In this instance, the burglars weren't acting on behalf of the government. The courts issued a search warrant in response to a citizen complaint about child pornography being present. The nature of the way that particular citizen became aware of the porn isn't all that relevant, so long as they didn't become aware of it in collusion with the government or other law enforcement agencies. If you steal a car, find a dead body in the trunk, and take that car to a police station, the fingerprint-covered bloody knife stuck in the body is still going to be admissible, even though it was discovered by another criminal act by another private citizen.

What these two burglars should be REALLY happy about is the fact that they aren't being charged with kiddy porn violations themselves. There have been a number of cases where people have been charged even after unintentionally coming into the possession of child pornography. Federal law bans the possession of child pornography, and doesn't make distinctions based on whether or not you enjoyed it.

[Behind the Aegis]

17. I don't think you are correct.

It doesn't matter they weren't acting on behalf of the government, which would have clearly been a violation, the "search" was not legal, and that is likely what the issue will be. They weren't "searching" for kiddie porn; if they had been, then the warrant might have been deemed legal. The warrant issued based on it will likely be tossed out and anything resulting from it.

I guess we will all find out once this starts to unfold (or becomes a "Law & Order: SVU" episode).

[Shandris]

12. And won't have to register.

Further proof of the uselessness of said 'registry'.

This exact thing (that you mention, not the kids/burglary angle) happened to someone in my home town. Over 2k images, computers, the whole works. Suspended sentence and no registry. Pillar of the Community, don't'cha'know.

[seabeyond]

6. i would give those little thieves huge hugs for being a better person.

someone can work with these kids....

[msongs]

7. good news, 3 criminals in one catch nt

[DaveJ]

8. Teens stealing Certificates of Deposit? Impressive.

Kids sure are a lot smarter than in my day. I wonder how they will transfer ownership. Perhaps scan them to their iPods or thumbdrives, you know where they keep all their music, and alter the signature digitally. Clever kids.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Could the evidence collected between the property stolen and the search warrant

be entered into trial as it was obtained via an illegal entry onto the property?

[Yo_Mama]

13. They don't need the evidence originally stolen

The two kids showed up and told the cops what they did and what they found. This was enough to get a valid search warrant. The search warrant was executed and more evidence was found, and the guy made a verbal confession.

Even if the guy recants his statement, the police have evidence from their legal search and they should be able to get more from ISP records. I would assume this would not even go to trial.

The only way to combat it is to argue that the kids were in cahoots with the cops from the beginning, i.e., their original break-in was actually prompted by the police. This appears unlikely.

I hope the kids are placed in some sort of meaningful intervention program. They can't go around committing burglaries, but apparently they do have a sense of moral responsibility and some moral courage. It can't have been easy to report that!

[GeorgeGist]

14. I suspect the 'evidence' is inadmissable ...

even in California.

[justiceischeap]

15. Sorta off-topic but when I got home tonight there was a notice

that we had a sex offender in our neighborhood. Apparently he was in a position of authority and slept with someone 14/15 years of age. He was also recently arrested for robbing someone at gun point. I think that sex crimes need harsher penalties than people who get busted with pot (and I'm anti-drug).

[JoeyT]

16. The problem with harsher penalties is prosecutors and even judges that want

to appear "Tough on crime" apply them to people they were never intended to apply to.

The registry itself is a good example. To teach teenagers how sexting can destroy their lives, we destroy their lives by sticking them on a registry. Some places are putting prostitutes on the registry as well. I'm sure being a registered sex offender will help them turn their lives around.

[dsc]

18. The evidence is definately admissable

but the teens will likely have to have the full force of the law applied to them to prove they weren't working for the cops.