United States v. Lively

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In 2009, Norwood-Charlier invited Lively and Bryon to his Kalamazoo, Michigan home. The men met in online chatrooms: Lively lived in California, and Quackenbush in Nevada. Norwood-Charlier lived with his father’s former wife, and her children, including Lively’s victim, then nine years old. As the men had planned, Norwood-Charlier photographed Lively performing oral sex on the boy. FBI agents, executing a warrant at Norwood-Charlier’s home, recovered Norwood-Charlier’s digital camera, containing a memory card, and a computer. Norwood-Charlier pleaded guilty to producing child-pornography videos and proffered information about Lively. In 2013, Lively and Quackenbush were arrested. The indictment alleged (18 U.S.C. 2251(a), 2251(e), and 2256(2)(A)) that Lively had produced images of himself performing oral sex on a minor using materials that had been manufactured outside Michigan, including but not limited to a Seagate hard drive manufactured in Thailand. The court held that the four-year delay did not prejudice Lively because his insanity claim was “speculative at best.” The government introduced Norwood-Charlier’s SanDisk memory card and camera as one exhibit. The court did not give a jury instruction limiting the reasons for which they could consider the camera or the memory card. The Sixth Circuit affirmed Lively’s conviction. While the government did not introduce evidence that Lively knew Norwood-Charlier owned the hard drive or intended Norwood-Charlier to copy images of Lively and the boy onto it, section 2251(a)’s interstate-commerce requirement was satisfied: the memory card bore a “Made in China” inscription. View "United States v. Lively" on Justia Law