United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
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No. 10-1890
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United States of America, *
*
Plaintiff - Appellee, *
* Appeal from the United States
v. * District Court for the
* District of South Dakota.
Terry Boll, *
*
Defendant - Appellant. *
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Submitted: December 16, 2010
Filed: March 21, 2011
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Before LOKEN and BYE, Circuit Judges, and MARSHALL,* District Judge.
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MARSHALL, District Judge.
Terry Boll lived in a house of many people and many computers—seven
residents had easy access to ten computers. The Department of Homeland Security
is responsible for investigating child pornography in the District of South Dakota.
After state investigators detected illegal downloads, the Department got a warrant and
raided the house. Seven officers in tactical gear entered while several Sioux Falls
police officers secured the perimeter.
*
The Honorable D.P. Marshall Jr., United States District Judge for the Eastern
District of Arkansas, sitting by designation.
Later scrutiny of the seized computers revealed child pornography on three of
them. Two of these belonged to Boll. Several illegal videos were on Boll’s desktop;
one video was also on his laptop. At trial, Boll’s lawyer pointed to Boll’s house-
mates as the wrongdoers. They all had access, Boll pressed, and the file-sharing
software could continue downloading between different users. The jury disagreed,
convicting Boll of possessing one of the videos, Exhibit Five, on his desktop
computer. 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B) (2006). The jury did not find that he
possessed either the same video on his laptop or the other videos on his desktop.
Boll appeals the District Court’s** judgment on the verdict. He argues that the
record contains insufficient evidence that he possessed child pornography. We
disagree. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, the jury
could have reasonably concluded that Boll knowingly possessed Exhibit Five. United
States v. Koch, 625 F.3d 470, 478 (8th Cir. 2010).
The record established a particular link between Boll and Exhibit 5. Unlike the
other videos, Exhibit Five was downloaded completely and moved to a folder called
“new folder”—which was visible whenever the desktop computer was turned on.
Two residents testified that the desktop belonged to Boll. It was registered to “Terry”
and sat in Boll’s bedroom. Finally, the jury heard about a later exchange between
Boll and one of the investigating officers.
Agent Scherer: I asked him if he had an explanation about why there
was child pornography on his computer.
Government: How did he respond?
**
The Honorable Lawrence L. Piersol, United States District Judge for the
District of South Dakota.
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Scherer: He replied I guess you caught me.
Government: How did you respond to that?
Scherer: I asked him further questions about how the child
pornography got on there, and he stated, well, they are
my computers, aren’t they.
Trial Tr. at 24–25. These admissions, which the jury was entitled to believe,
confirmed Boll’s ownership of the computers and the pornography. Boll does not
contest that Exhibit 5 involved minors and was transported in interstate commerce.
Koch, 625 F.3d at 478–79.
Notwithstanding the fact that many people had access to Boll’s desktop
computer, and the fact that the jury did not find he possessed the other videos, the
record supports “an inference of [Boll’s] guilt [as to Exhibit 5], reasonably drawn
from the facts.” United States v. Hernandez, 301 F.3d 886, 890 (8th Cir. 2002). The
question is whether substantial evidence supports Boll’s conviction for possessing
Exhibit 5. It does.
Affirmed.
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