State v. Gailus

¶1 Following a bench trial, Thomas Gailus was convicted of 10 counts of possessing depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct, a felony.1 Gailus asserts that all but one of these felony convictions were barred by the Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy prohibition. Because the statute defining his criminal conduct defined the prohibited act as the possession of “matter,” Gailus contends his possession of a single compact disc, *194as a tangible item, rather than the individual digital files stored on the disc, constitutes the appropriate “unit of prosecution.” Alternatively, Gailus…