United States v. Specialist ANTHONY T. DAVENPORT, ARMY 20150322

Appellant, SP4 Anthony T. Davenport, was convicted at a general court-martial of distributing and possessing child pornography and possession of child erotica; sentence included BCD, 21 months confinement, reduction to E‑1.
Investigation traced an IP address to appellant; on 10 June 2013 CID interviewed him and he admitted downloading, viewing, deleting, and previously distributing child pornography.
Forensic exam of appellant’s laptop found internet searches for child-pornography terms and images in the laptop’s unallocated space; the cell phone cache also contained child-pornography images tied to a Skype exchange on 19 February 2013.
The contested legal issues focused on whether files found in unallocated space and files in a phone cache can support convictions for ‘‘knowing possession’’ within the charged date ranges.
The government charged possession over a multi-month range (on or about 12 Jan 2012 to on or about 10 Jun 2013), not just on the seizure date; appellant admitted possession during that period in his statement.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether images found in laptop unallocated space support convictions for knowing possession during the charged date range	Gov: Unallocated-space files recovered by forensic software can be proof of possession during the alleged period, especially given appellant’s admissions	Davenport: Files in unallocated space are inaccessible to a user and thus cannot prove knowing possession during the charged period	Held: Conviction affirmed; files in unallocated space combined with admissions and date range support knowing possession during the charged period
Whether images in the phone cache support knowing-possession conviction on alleged dates	Gov: Cache entries show images were opened/accessed (Skype exchange) and remained under appellant’s control	Davenport: Cache entries alone are insufficient to establish knowing possession on the alleged dates	Held: Conviction affirmed; cache metadata showing creation/access tied to Skype established knowing possession on or about the charged date

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (standard for legal sufficiency review)
United States v. McArthur, 573 F.3d 608 (8th Cir.) (child pornography in unallocated space can support possession conviction)
United States v. Hill, 750 F.3d 982 (8th Cir.) (definition/description of unallocated space)
United States v. Flyer, 633 F.3d 911 (9th Cir.) (unallocated space contains deleted data not accessible without forensic tools)
United States v. Seiver, 692 F.3d 774 (7th Cir.) (deleted files remain recoverable in absence of overwriting)