MASON CITY – A Mason City man who was sentenced to prison in June after being found guilty by a jury of possessing child pornography has lost his appeal.
Brandon Clark Manning, 32, was sentenced two years in prison and ordered to pay a $625.00 fine after being found guilty on June 17th of the charge of possessing child pornography, an aggravated misdemeanor. At least 23 pieces of evidence were submitted in court.
Clark appealed his conviction for sexual exploitation of a minor, claiming his right to privacy was violated by a private party seizure and the subsequent police search of a flash drive that contained illicit images. Second, he claimed the State did not offer substantial evidence he possessed the flash drive found in his tool bag. The flash drive came into the hands of police by way of private citizens who found it in Manning’s tool bag and viewed its contents before turning it over to authorities. Police opened the files on the flash drive without obtaining a search warrant.
The Iowa Court of Appeals upheld his conviction, saying that the federal and state constitutions only protect against unreasonable search and seizure by state actors, and because the police search did not exceed the scope of the private actors’ viewing of the flash drive, the justices affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress. Additionally, his conviction was affirmed because the record contains ample evidence Manning knowingly possessed the pornographic images of children saved on the flash drive.
Mason City police earlier said that they began investigating Manning in October of 2012.
According to court documents, in October 2012, Paul Nieman needed to borrow tools from his friend Brandon Manning, but Manning was in jail. Nieman had used Manning’s tools in the past and told Manning’s girlfriend, Patricia Pearce, he intended to borrow them again. Nieman found the tool bag inside Manning’s truck.
Inside the lining of the tool bag, Nieman found a flash drive. Because of the way the flash drive was hidden, Nieman was “curious” about its contents, so he plugged it into his laptop computer. On the flash drive he saw what he considered “indecent” photographs of children. Nieman recalled the children depicted were four to five years old and looked like they were engaging in sex acts.
Nieman then called Barb Corey, who had dated Manning for three years, and told her he found a flash drive with “pictures of little kids on it.” Corey picked up the drive from Nieman and “checked to see what all things were on it.” She saw images of a “cartoon” portrayal of child pornography she had seen Manning drawing while they were dating. Also on the flash drive, Corey saw sexually explicit photographs of herself she remembered Manning taking and “a lot of pictures of him in his apartment.” Corey testified she did not load any additional images onto the flash drive before she turned it over to the Mason City police officer Jason Hugi.
Officer Hugi recalled Corey bringing in the flash drive on October 21, 2012. Corey told the officer she had received the drive from a friend of hers and was “concerned that there were some pictures on there of her children, pornographic pictures of her children.” Hugi took the flash drive to Investigator Jeremy Ryal, who had specialized training in computers and child pornography.
Investigator Ryal placed the drive into his computer and the two officers viewed the images. The drive contained eighteen separate images of child pornography, seventy-two sketched images of children engaged in sex acts, and fifteen photos showing Manning’s face. The images were all organized in a folder titled “overtime work candy” and all appeared to be loaded to the drive on the same day, February 20, 2012, around the same time of day. Officer Hugi interviewed Manning about the drive. Manning denied ownership of the drive containing the images.
Police arrested Manning on March 22, 2013. A jury found Manning guilty and the court sentenced him to serve a prison term not to exceed two years.
AWAITING TRANSPORT TO PRISON
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hey Philosophus, you must have missed reading this part, his conviction was affirmed because the record contains ample evidence Manning knowingly possessed the pornographic images of children saved on the flash drive.
Even if he was the sketcher of the images, the method in which the flash drive was acquired doesn’t prove that the 18 images of child pornography were put there by Manning. All of the files could have been loaded up onto this flash drive by his former girlfriend, including the sketches and then delivered to the police by her to set Manning up. It would be damning if Manning admitted to sketching the pictures, but still doesn’t prove he was the owner of actual images of children.
Maybe Corey had a vendetta for this man, and knew that he sketched provocative images of children? She may have added the additional real-life images herself. Did they check her computer thoroughly? Also, the defense has a good point: Was a search warrant acquired? No. The evidence shouldn’t have been admissible, and it cannot be directly linked to Manning, unless they had purchase receipts for the flash drive, fingerprints etc. It’s not hard to load up a flash drive and turn it in
it said the police had been doing an investigation on Manning? Before or after the flash drive was delivered to them? How do we know the police didn’t load up the images?Did an outside expert examine the flash drive and determine whether all images were loaded at the same time? It sounds like this guy’s defense attorney sucked. It should concern everyone because convictions SHOULDN’T be possible in this manner.Too many innocent people could be set up if this is allowed precedence.
Consider this scenario: You lived with a girl and shared everything digitally on one computer…she had access to your photos, your artwork, writings, music. You break up with her and she gets mad. She decides to take some old images you had taken of her naked, along with some random photos of your apartment and your artwork still left on the computer and load it onto a flashdrive along with some child pornography, and march it down to the police station to report you, destroying U
And the very fact that all the images were loaded at the same time is highly suspicious. Someone dragged and dropped a whole bunch of files at one time onto a flashdrive. If it was this man’s flashdrive, more than likely images would be added collectively over time.I don’t know this guy from Adam, and I don’t know if he’s guilty or not, but with the information given, I find it disturbing that someone could be convicted in this manner. It seems threatening to due process. Thoughts?
If only he had joined the chamber of commerce, he would never have even been arrested.
Legally…this stinks. There should be no way in hell someone should be able to turn in a flash drive of images to the police and say it was someone else’s, which then results in a conviction on that person. I’m aware it’s taboo to appear “defending” someone accused of such crimes, but can you imagine the world we’d be in if it were so easy to gain a conviction on someone in this manner? The police should have quietly accepted the evidence then started their own investigation.
More than likely the man probably did sketch the drawings, and take the pictures or possess them, but legally this case should be appealed and thrown out. Essentially it would be like someone walking into the police station with a bag of cocaine and saying they got it from their friend’s tool bag. Child pornography is egregious, but that doesn’t mean a cockamamey style of acquiring convictions should be tolerated. Jason Hugi was involved with this? No respect for him or his dad
I would imagine his attorney raised all those issues at trial, and the jury thought otherwise, and the appeals court said there was enough evidence for them to come to that conclusion.
The question I’d have is: Is Manning a known artist? Did he admit to sketching the pictures? Artists sometimes sketch or paint subject matter controversial in nature, to explore themes and phenomena found in society. Even if he did sketch the pictures, artwork should never be considered criminal, no matter the content. It’s possible the “friend” and ex girlfriend were so incessed by the sketches they added real pornography to ensure a conviction against him.
Remember case in point a few years ago: Pete Townsend of the band THE WHO was caught with child pornography on his computer, and he successfully evaded prosecution because he told authorities he had been molested in the past and was exploring themes of child molestation to better understand what happened to him. It’s possible Manning was sketching these images for a similar reason? Were the real life images the children of his ex girlfriend? Could she have taken those images?
And I have to say the title of the supposed computer folder “Overtime Work Candy” seems highly suspicious. Think about this for a moment. If you were actually a child pornographer, would you title your folder in such a way? Wouldn’t you disguise the name of it? This title seems more like something deliberately named to be provocative, perhaps by the supposed “friend” who claims he found the flash drive, the ex girlfriend…or the police? Were the first 2 dating? Lots of holes.
In summation I would say the police should have opened an investigation on Manning, requesting warrants to surveillance him and any computer equipment he may own. They should have waited patiently until they acquired evidence directly related to Manning’s own personal equipment or actions. They allowed someone to walk into the police station, turn over a flash drive, and then arrested him. Child pornography is always going to elicit disgust from juries towards the accused.
Allowing such a conviction to stand threatens all of us in our rights to due process, to be reasonably secure against false allegations, as well as protections of free speech as expressed through artwork. The police should be required to exert more effort before they press charges based on the content of a turned-in flash drive. IN the era of electronic media, it should appear DOWNRIGHT SCARY that our government wouldn’t require a greater burden of proof before acting.