BY JIMMY HANCOCK
jhancock@journalnet.com
The Idaho Court of Appeals affirmed the 30-year sentence of a Blackfoot man convicted of possessing child pornography.
The court also ruled that the thumb drive the illegal images and videos were contained on constitutes “electronically reproduced visual material” as defined by Idaho Statutes at the time of his conviction.
Chase Gillespie was originally arrested in July 2008 and charged with one count of felony possession child pornography. He was subsequently convicted, given a withheld judgment and placed on five years’ probation.
In February 2011, he was found in violation of that probation and was also charged with several new counts of possession of child pornography, two of which were based on images and videos found on a thumb drive, a portable memory stick also commonly referred to as a flash or jump drive.
The charges related to images and videos found on Gillespie’s computer were dropped after it was determined that only the thumb drive contained images and videos that were illegal.
Gillespie’s attorney argued at the time that images and videos on the thumb drive did not constitute electronically reproduced visual materials as defined by Idaho Statutes. Seventh District Judge Darren Simpson determined it did and the charges stood.
Simpson, at sentencing, revoked Gillespie’s probation in the 2008 case and sentenced him to two years fixed and eight years indeterminate. In the 2011 case, he sentenced him to three years fixed and seven years indeterminate on each of the two counts.
He then ran all three sentences consecutive, meaning Gillespie is serving eight years minimum and 22 years indeterminate.
Gillespie appealed his conviction based on Simpson’s decision regarding the images and videos on the thumb drive. He also appealed his sentence, calling it excessive and an abuse of discretion.
Gillespie contends that the term “electronically reproduced visual material,” does not specifically refer to digital images and videos, citing the 2012 Idaho Legislature’s decision to add the word “digital” to the statute in question.
The Idaho Court of Appeals, in a decision released last week, said it believes it’s “abundantly clear that in its usual, ordinary meaning, the term ‘electronically reproduced visual material’ in the prior statute encompasses digital images. Under any commonsense definition, a digital image downloaded onto a thumb drive is ‘electronically reproduced visual material’ within the meaning of the statute.”
The court also determined that Simpson did not abuse his discretion in sentencing Gillespie.