CA7: PC on the totality; kind of invoking Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Defendant’s post-conviction argument that there wasn’t probable cause as to the age of the child in his child pornography case fails because common sense dictates the age from the age of the parents. In addition, defendant’s own word choice for the female genitalia shows intent. United States v. Schenck, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 19815 (7th Cir. July 2, 2021)*:

Again, Schenck’s argument fails. The affidavit quotes Schneibel saying Schenck sent pictures of female genitalia. The word used is vulgar slang. These are not descriptions of innocent photos containing mere non-lewd nudity. We agree with the district judge that the vulgar word “unquestionably connotes a focus on the genitals … .” We reject as frivolous the argument than an image so labeled would not likely be sexually explicit. And the complete content and context of the affidavit also gave the issuing judge ample grounds to find probable cause that a search would produce evidence of crime. Besides, the affidavit need not prove the search will definitively produce evidence of crime.

Invoking Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the magistrate judge compares Schenck to a character who looks askance at Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago. The famous painting employs pointillism. Small dots of color—indecipherable in isolation—add up to an intelligible, stunning, tranquil whole. Schenck tries to criticize a tiny fraction of dots, or the tiny space between a few dots, but he misses the whole picture.