United States v. Stuart Romm

BEA, Circuit Judge:

We are called upon to decide whether, absent a search warrant or probable cause, the contents of a laptop computer may be searched at an international border and, if so, what evidence is sufficient to convict its owner of receiving and possessing child pornography. We also address an error in the jury instructions on the mental state required for knowingly possessing child pornography.

Defendant Stuart Romm connected to the internet from a Las Vegas hotel room and visited websites containing images of child pornography. As Romm viewed the images online and enlarged them on…