United States v. Ramos

James Ramos (defendant) was released on parole after serving a prison sentence for sexually abusing minor girls. As part of Ramos’s parole, he was subject to search by his parole officer and was forbidden from viewing pornography. At a polygraph interview that was part of Ramos’s parole, Ramos admitted to viewing child pornography on his computer. Ramos’s parole officer reported Ramos’s admission to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. ICE agents visited Ramos’s home, during which Ramos consented to a search of his home and of the computer he used to search for child pornography. Ramos’s computer was seized and subject to a forensic examination. The forensic examiner found 140 child-pornography images stored in the computer’s temporary internet files. Temporary internet files are a locally stored cache of images and videos downloaded by the computer from websites visited by the user. Temporary internet files are cached to allow faster loading of websites on subsequent visits and to allow offline browsing of cached websites. There was evidence Ramos had attempted to delete the temporary internet files. Ramos’s browser history showed that Ramos had conducted numerous internet searches for child pornography. The federal government (plaintiff) charged Ramos with receiving and possessing child pornography. Ramos was convicted after a jury trial. Ramos appealed, arguing that merely viewing child-pornography images stored in temporary internet files was insufficient to establish either receipt or possession of child pornography.