United States v. Christopher Welshans, 892 F.3d 566

Police traced child‑pornography sharing to an IP subscribed to the defendant’s aunt; agents surveilled and then executed a warrant at Welshans’s home.
Welshans’s aunt warned him; he began moving many files into his laptop’s recycle bin before agents arrived; agents interrupted by removing the battery; none of the files in the bin were lost and were restorable.
Government recovered >10,000 images and hundreds of videos from Welshans’s laptop and desktop; Welshans admitted sole use of the machines, using his aunt’s Wi‑Fi, and installing a file‑sharing program but denied knowledge of the illicit files.
At trial the Government showed two short video clips (without sound) but also introduced detailed written/file‑name descriptions and testimony describing far more violent material (bestiality, bondage, infant/toddler sexual abuse); Exhibit 2 with graphic descriptions was sent to the jury room.
Jury convicted Welshans of distribution and possession of child pornography; at sentencing the district court applied a two‑level obstruction enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 based on Welshans’s file deletion, raising his Guidelines range; the Third Circuit affirms the convictions but reverses the obstruction enhancement and remands for resentencing.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility / prosecutorial misconduct (inflammatory descriptions and file names)	Welshans: Government systematically injected inadmissible, highly prejudicial descriptions (bestiality, bondage, infant abuse) that violated Rule 403 and Cunningham and infected the trial.	Government: Entitled to present evidence of its choice; the shown videos and descriptions were probative of possession/distribution and representative of the seized material.	Court: Admission of repeated, graphic descriptions was erroneous and prosecutor’s closing argument improperly appealed to passion, but error was harmless under plain‑error review because the evidentiary proof of guilt was overwhelming; conviction affirmed.
Sentencing—obstruction enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 (Application Note 4(D))	Welshans: His file deletion occurred contemporaneously with arrest and did not materially hinder the investigation (files were restorable), so the enhancement is inapplicable.	Government: Deletion was not contemporaneous with arrest; or, if it was, it materially hindered the investigation by requiring extra work and being a contested trial issue.	Court: Deletion was contemporaneous with arrest but did not produce a material hindrance; application of § 3C1.1 was improper; vacated the sentencing and remanded for resentencing without the enhancement.

United States v. Cunningham, 694 F.3d 372 (3d Cir. 2012) (Rule 403 bars highly prejudicial child‑pornography videos showing bondage/violence).
Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172 (1997) (prosecution normally entitled to present evidence of its choice; limited exceptions).
Gov’t of the Virgin Islands v. Mills, 821 F.3d 448 (3d Cir. 2016) (plain‑error standard for unpreserved prosecutorial‑misconduct claims and limits on appeals to passion).
United States v. Liburd, 607 F.3d 339 (3d Cir. 2010) (two‑step prosecutorial‑misconduct analysis: misconduct then whether trial was fundamentally unfair).
United States v. Morena, 547 F.3d 191 (3d Cir. 2008) (prosecution may not systematically inject inadmissible evidence).
United States v. Finley, 726 F.3d 483 (3d Cir. 2013) (consideration of stipulations and alternative evidence in Rule 403 balancing).
United States v. Norman, 129 F.3d 1393 (10th Cir. 1997) (concealment begun before police arrival can be "contemporaneous" with arrest where defendant acted believing arrest imminent).
United States v. Savard, 964 F.2d 1075 (11th Cir. 1992) (hiding evidence when agents were at the door can be contemporaneous with later arrest).