Has anyone tried lately to forfeit the computer of an online child sex predator under the criminal instrument provision of Article 18.18?

From the CCP:

Art. 18.18. DISPOSITION OF GAMBLING PARAPHERNALIA, 
PROHIBITED WEAPON, CRIMINAL INSTRUMENT, AND 
OTHER CONTRABAND.
(g) For purposes of this article:
  (1) "criminal instrument" has the meaning defined 
      in the Penal Code; 

From the Penal Code:

16.01.  UNLAWFUL USE OF CRIMINAL INSTRUMENT.  
(a) A person commits an offense if:
  (1) he possesses a criminal instrument with intent 
      to use it in the commission of an offense;  or
  (2) with knowledge of its character and with 
      intent to use or aid or permit another to use 
      in the commission of an offense, he 
      manufactures, adapts, sells, installs, or sets 
      up a criminal instrument.
(b) For the purpose of this section, "criminal 
    instrument" means anything, the possession, 
    manufacture, or sale of which is not otherwise 
    an offense, that is specially designed, made, or 
    adapted for use in the commission of an offense.

Was there something special about the computer that made it especially suited to the illegal purpose?

Internet explorer? AIM? If you think about it, online predators can't solicit children without a computer or some other web enabled device. It doesn't seem right that they can get their computer back to commit more crime once the forensic people have finished copying all their illegal chat logs. I would say you should be able to do the same thing with hackers and virus writers.

There's Janjua v. State, 997 S.W.2d 419 where prosecution for a computer used as a server for porn was upheld. I know that probation and parole conditions often limit or prohibit the use of computers and internet for this type of offender. Using regular asset forfeiture is not possible because the computer usually has to go to another agency for evidentiary processing which is not allowed during forfeiture proceedings.

OK, so the guy installed chat software, thats a start...

Perhaps he kept an electronic document on the computer with a list of potential targets... maybe he installed a webcam or something to do video chats... hmmm

It would really help make the case if he had some portion of the computer disk drive encrypted where he could hide incriminating data... or maybe an image file of some younger guy that he used a fake picture of "himself" when chatting with potential victims.

I know these are NOT great ideas, but maybe they will tickle a mental funnybone.



edit: they are NOT great ideas

[This message was edited by AlexLayman on 05-08-08 at .]

Hackers and virus writers will have installed specialty programs for software development and system debugging... so they will have "adapted" the computer to the purpose.

See if they didn't configure their chat client to lie about their identity... to be more appealing to victims.

The fake/doctored image is a pretty good. What about a chat name that indicates a false age?

I dunno, my Macs came with XCODE and AppleScript that could be used to develop and debug illegal software. Isn't Visual Basic included in Windows somewhere?

What about a chat name that indicates a false age?

That sounds pretty good. For what innocent reason would a person do this? Your family, coworkers, and friends already know your age so no need for deception... I wonder if he didn't have a second normal chat name for use talking to normal people... that look pretty bad.

It might be the combination of lots of little clues that make this computer specially adapted for this crime. Maybe even his "favorites" list in the web browser will give some ideas...

Isn't Visual Basic included in Windows somewhere?

There is a VBScript interpreter but not any software to help you write it. VBScript is like a stripped down version of Visual Basic and it wouldn't be a particularly good way to write a virus. For very simple things you could just open up Notepad and write code but anything more than a couple dozen lines long and you�ll really need to be using something specifically designed for the task of developing software... especially when it comes to debugging.

Also the MS Office products like Word, Excel, and Access all have a VB variant named Visual Basic for Applications but that is specifically for automating office documents and not so good for writing a virus... although about 10 years ago there were quite a few "Word Macro Viruses" going around before everyone learned to disable macros by default.