United States v. Tank
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
200 F.3d 627 (2000)
- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
David Tank (defendant) was charged with various crimes related to sexually explicit images of children. The charges centered around an online chatroom with 16 members. Members of the chatroom discussed and exchanged child pornography. Authorities had initially arrested Ronald Riva, who maintained logs of chats that were held in the chatroom. To save space on his computer, Riva had removed nonsexual and extraneous material from the chat logs. At trial, the prosecution (plaintiff) sought to admit into evidence printouts of discussions that occurred in the chatroom. Riva testified that the printouts appeared to be accurate representations of the log files on his computer. Participating in the chats described in the printouts was someone using the screenname Cessna. Tank acknowledged that he had used the screenname Cessna, and other coconspirators testified that the screenname Cessna belonged to Tank. Tank argued that the prosecution was unable to properly authenticate the logs because they were incomplete and because Riva could have made other, material alterations to the logs. The district court overruled Tank’s objection. Tank was convicted, and he appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Pregerson, J.)
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