J.B. ex rel. Benjamin v. Fassnacht, 2015 WL 5332649 (3rd Cir.). DELINQUENCY, SEARCHES. Parents of juvenile who was arrested and committed to youth detention facility after he threatened girls in neighborhood brought § 1983 action on his behalf against state troopers, county, and county officials, for false arrest, unreasonable search, false imprisonment, and violations of due process. Appellate court held that strip searches conducted by juvenile detention center as standard part of intake process for juvenile detainees before admission to general population were reasonable.
Mulholland v. Berks County, 706 F.3d 227 (3rd Cir. 2013). In parents’ § 1983 claim against county, there was no violation of due process. Agency policy required staff to update the child abuse registry with additional information about abuse or neglect, but not exculpatory information such as denials and recantations. The right to notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard was protected by the administrative appeals process where an individual could have the registry information modified if aggrieved.
State v. Finley, 726 F.3d 483 (3d Cir. 2013). District court did not abuse discretion in admitting images and videos of child pornography into evidence despite defendant’s offer to stipulate. Admission was not unfairly prejudicial given that evidence was relevant to prove element that defendant knowingly received, distributed, and possessed child pornography, the court merely allowed presentation of 13 of some 30,000 found on his computer, because the court viewed the offered exhibits ahead of time to ensure they were not especially inflammatory, and released one juror for cause who claimed she could not be unbiased.
United States v. Palomino-Coronado, 2015 WL 6745914 (3rd Cir.). SEXUAL ABUSE, VISUAL DEPICTION. Defendant appealed conviction for knowingly employing, using, persuading, inducing, enticing, or coercing minor in sexually explicit conduct for purpose of producing visual depiction of that conduct. Evidence that he had engaged in sexual activity with seven-year-old child on more than one occasion, had taken several nonsexually-explicit pictures of her with his cell phone, and that one sexually explicit picture was taken and later deleted did not alone support conclusion that defendant engaged in sexual activity with child in order to take picture.