Case Study: Collin County Possession of Child Pornography With Intent to Promote

Possession of Child Pornography Case Study in Collin County:  My client was charged with and indicted on 13 counts of possession of child pornography with intent to promote attached to 7 of those charges by a Collin County Grand Jury.  The first challenge in this Collin County Child Pornography case was the “with intent to promote language”.  The punishment range for a first-time charge of possession of child pornography is 2-10 years in prison. The punishment range for a first-time charge of possession of child pornography with intent to promote is 2-20 years in prison.  I was able to negotiate with the Collin County child pornography prosecutor for my client to plead guilty to the counts that did not include, “with intent to promote child pornography”, and waive the counts including “with intent to promote child pornography”. This limited the amount of time the Judge could send my client to prison to 10 years instead of 20 years.  It also made my client’s involvement with possession of child pornography appear less egregious so that when the Judge was making punishment decisions we would be well situated to plead for probation and no prison time.

In Collin County this detail also mattered A LOT because at the time my client’s case was pending people charged with possession of child pornography were sentenced to prison. No probation, no deferred, just go straight to prison! This trend was occurring in each of the district courts in Collin County, there wasn’t one Judge who had given probation or deferred during this trend. BUT this was not always the trend. In Collin County possession of child pornography cases used be distributed evenly though out the Collin County District Courts and the trial team prosecutors assigned to that court would handle the child pornography case. 

These trial team prosecutors at any given time had a full case load, murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, theft, possession of drugs. They were swamped and many times the last thing they wanted to do was look at images of child pornography and go to trial in that type of case. So, they would offer the person charged with possession of child pornography in Collin County probation or deferred adjudication. The reason I am so familiar with this is because I used to be a felony prosecutor and I worked on felony trial teams and in felony grand jury, so I became familiar with how these cases worked their way through the system. 

Around the time my client was charged with possession of child pornography in Collin County things had changed. The Collin County District Attorney’s office had assigned a special prosecutor and investigator to handle all of the Collin County child pornography cases. This prosecutor and this investigator started doing a very thorough job of reviewing each case and putting together presentations to use at trial or in punishments hearings. This prosecutor went through the child pornography images to select the ones that were most demonstrative for the Judge as to why prison time was appropriate. 

The Judges now had a different view of these cases, no longer were these cases presented to them by a prosecutor who also had hundreds of other cases set that day, they were presented by a prosecutor who just had child pornography set and whose sole job it was to seek prison time for Collin County child pornography charges. The Judges saw a whole different side of these cases and one by one people charged with possession of child pornography went to prison. My client did not! I worked hard to show the Judge why my client was worthy of probation and the Judge agreed. My client was allowed to serve time on probation after a two-day punishment hearing and further allowed to live in a home that was within the school zone boundary because we coordinated with probation and the Court to secure his residence for him. 

As for the current trend in Collin County possession of child pornography cases you still need to be on high alert for a prison only offer if you are arrested for possession of child pornography because there is still a specialized prosecutor working on possession of child pornography cases in Collin County. Now it is a different prosecutor than the prosecutor I worked with on this case. The Collin County possession of child pornography investigator that was assigned to my case resigned from the position in March of 2022, right after our plea was completed. The Collin County possession of child pornography prosecutor that was assigned to my case was transferred to a different division in March of 2022, right after our plea was completed. 

When you have a Collin County possession of child pornography defense attorney that systematically attacks every detail in your case and passionately prepares and presents your possession of child pornography case to a Collin County District Court, you can have success. Please contact me today if you are facing Collin County child pornography charges. Having the right lawyer on your side to guide you as soon as you are arrested is key to mitigating damage and ensuring the best outcome later in your case.