After a jury convicted him of “two counts of aggravated
sexual abuse in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2241(c) (Counts 1 and 2); two
counts of interstate transportation of a minor with intent to engage in
criminal sexual activity in violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2423(a) (Counts 3
and 4); and one count of accessing child pornography with intent to view in
violation of 18 U.S. Code §§ 2252A(a)(5)(B) and 2252A(b)(2) (Count
5)” and the district court judge who had the case sentenced him to “life
imprisonment, a ten-year term of supervised release, and a $400 special assessment”, Michael A. Goodale appealed.
U.S. v. Goodale, 2013 WL
6847032 (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit 2013). For a little more on the charges and the
facts, check out the press release you can find here.
This, according to the opinion, is how the prosecution
arose:
On Saturday, September 17, 2011,
thirteen-year-old M.R. showed his mother a history of gay teen pornography
sites on Goodale's laptop. (Goodale was staying with M.R. and his mother.) They
took the laptop to the police where two officers interviewed them.
During the taped interview, M.R. opened
the laptop, demonstrating that the phrase `gay teen porn’ auto-populated when
he typed `ga’ in the search box. An officer moved the laptop and touched the
keypad for about 17 seconds during this process. M.R. also described how
Goodale sexually abused him and Goodale's thirteen-year-old nephew, Z.G.
Police went to M.R.'s house to locate Goodale.
Consenting to questioning, he accompanied police to the station where the
investigating officers interviewed him. Over his objection, they seized the
laptop pending a search warrant. The officers then interviewed Z.G., who also
described the sexual abuse.
U.S. v. Goodale, supra.
Monday morning, another police officer
applied for and received a state search warrant for the laptop based on
information from M.R., his mother, and the two investigating officers. The
application did not indicate that the officers had looked at the laptop or if
they had seen anything on it.
U.S. v. Goodale, supra.
After a federal grand jury indicted him on the charges
outlined above, Goodale moved to suppress “the information found on the laptop
and his September 17 statements to police.”
U.S. v. Goodale, supra. The
U.S. District Court judge who had the case denied the motion, Goodale went to
trial and, as noted above, was convicted.
U.S. v. Goodale, supra. On appeal, he argued, among other things,
that the District Court judge erred in denying his motion to suppress. U.S. v.
Goodale, supra.
More precisely, he made two arguments as to why the motion to
suppress the information found on the laptop should have been granted, the
first of which was that “his laptop was seized and searched in violation of the
4th Amendment.” U.S. v. Goodale, supra. The Court of Appeals began its analysis of
his argument by noting that
[w]arrantless searches `are per se
unreasonable under the 4th Amendment -- subject only to a few specifically
established and well-delineated exceptions.’ Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403U.S. 443 (1971). At issue here is the
private search exception.
The 4th Amendment “does not extend to private
searches that are neither instigated by nor performed on behalf of a
governmental entity.’ U.S. v. Starr, 533 F.3d 985 (U.S. Court
of Appeals for the 8th Circuit 2008). If the government views items found
during a private search, the ‘”legality of later government intrusions ‘must be
tested by the degree to which they exceeded the scope of the private search.”’ U.S. v. Starr, supra, quoting U.S. v. Miller, 152
F.3d 813 (8th Cir.1998)).
U.S. v. Goodale, supra.
As I have noted in prior posts, the 4th Amendment
only applies to state action, i.e., to law enforcement conduct, and so does not
apply when a private person conducts what would otherwise be a 4th Amendment
“search.” As I have also noted, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that
it does not violate the 4th Amendment for an officer to view
evidence a private party has already discovered.
Getting back to Goodale’s argument, the Court of Appeals
found that the
private search exception applies here.
After discovering a history of teen pornography sites, M.R. and his mother took
Goodale's laptop to the police station where M.R. showed officers the laptop's
web history. This search was neither instigated by nor performed on behalf of
the police. U.S. v. Starr, supra.
During M.R.'s demonstration, an officer
moved and touched the laptop for about 17 seconds. No evidence suggests that
the officer's viewing went further than M.R.'s search. See U.S. v.
Starr, supra (`When the government re-examines materials following a
private search, the government may intrude on an individual's privacy expectations
without violating the 4th Amendment, provided the government intrusion goes no
further than the private search’).
U.S. v. Goodale, supra.
Goodale, though, also argued that
the private search exception is
inapplicable because he did not consent to M.R.'s possession or transportation
of the laptop. He further believes the exception does not apply when the search
and seizure results from trespass or theft by a private party. These arguments
are meritless.
The private search exception applies `to
a search or seizure, even an unreasonable one, effected by a
private individual not acting as an agent of the Government or with the
participation or knowledge of any governmental official.’ U.S. v.Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109 (1984) (emphasis added), citing Walter
v. U.S., 447 U.S. 649 (1980). See also U.S. v. Malbrough, 922
F.2d 458 (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit 1990) (upholding a
search by a private citizen who trespassed on another's property and viewed
marijuana).
U.S. v. Goodale, supra. If you are interested, you can read more
about the private search exception, with particular application to searches for
digital evidence, in the article you can find here.
Goodale’s other argument as to why his motion to suppress
should have been granted involved “the officers' continuing seizure of his
laptop without a warrant.” U.S. v. Goodale, supra. As Wikipedia noteshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text , the 4th
Amendment establishes that “the people” of the United States are
constitutionally protected against “unreasonable” searches and seizures. As Wikipedia also notes, a “search” violates
a reasonable expectation of privacy in a place of thing, while a “seizure”
interferes with (i) a person’s freedom of movement and (ii) someone’s
possessory interest in certain property, like a laptop.
Here, the Court of Appeals began its analysis of Goodale’s
argument regarding the seizure of his laptop by explaining that
`[w]here law enforcement authorities
have probable cause to believe that a container holds contraband or evidence of
a crime, but have not secured a warrant, the Court has interpreted the [4th]
Amendment to permit seizure of the property, pending issuance of a warrant to
examine its contents, if the exigencies of the circumstances demand it or some
other recognized exception to the warrant requirement is present.’ U.S.
v. Clutter, 674 F.3d 980 (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th
Circuit 2013), (quoting U.S. v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983)).
U.S. v. Goodale, supra.
The court then rejected Goodale’s argument regarding the
continuing seizure of the laptop:
The officers had probable cause to
believe the laptop contained contraband based on M.R.'s and his mother's
statements about its internet history, and M.R.'s and Z.G.'s allegations of
sexual abuse. See U.S. v. Clutter, supra. The exigencies of the
circumstances also demanded continuing seizure; Goodale knew about the
investigation and could destroy the evidence. See U.S. v. Beasley, 688
F.3d 523 (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit 2012) (upholding the
warrantless seizure of a computer where, like Clutter, `the
police had a legitimate interest in preventing destruction of the potential
contraband’).
U.S. v. Goodale, supra.
The Court of Appeals then took up Goodale’s related argument
that the district court judge should have suppressed the “statements made to
investigating officers on September 17 as fruit of the (allegedly illegal)
laptop search.” U.S. v. Goodale, supra. The
court’s reference to “fruit” is a shorthand way of referring to the exclusionary
that is used to enforce the 4th Amendment’s prohibitions. As Wikipedia notes, early in the twentieth
century the U.S. Supreme Court developed the “legal metaphor” of the “fruit of
the poisonous tree” to refer to evidence that is obtained as a result of law
enforcement officers’ violating the 4th Amendment. Such evidence must be suppressed absent some
reason to the contrary.
Here, the Court of Appeals then noted that the
`exclusionary rule reaches not only
primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure,
but also evidence later discovered and found to be derivative of an illegality
or “fruit of the poisonous tree.”’ U.S. v. Riesselman, 646
F.3d 1072 (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit 2011) (quoting Segura
v. U.S., 468 U.S. 796 1984)). `[T]he defendant bears the initial burden
of establishing the factual nexus between the constitutional violation and the
challenged evidence.’ U.S. v. Riesselman, supra quoting U.S. v.
Marasco, 487 F.3d 543 (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit 2007)).
U.S. v. Goodale, supra.
Goodale, though, had not actually preserved his right to
challenge the prosecution’s use of his statements at trial. When he moved to suppress the statements
prior to trial, he argued that they should be suppressed because he was in “custody”
for Miranda purposes when he made the statements but “he did not voluntarily,
knowingly and intelligently waive his Miranda rights.” U.S. v.
Goodale, 2012 WL 1965600 (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of
Iowa 2012). The district court judge denied his motion to suppress because she
found Goodale
voluntarily accompanied law enforcement
to the police station; law enforcement told him that he was free to leave; law
enforcement read him his Miranda rights; [Goodale] read [him] he
had the `right to not talk to’ the officers . . . and [he] then signed the
waiver form. Moreover, [Goodale] demonstrated that he understood his rights by
invoking his right to remain silent approximately ten minutes into the
interview.
U.S. v. Goodale
(U.S. District Court), supra.
The Court of Appeals therefore explained that
[i]n the district court, Goodale moved
to suppress his September 17 statements on the basis of Miranda violations,
not as fruit of the laptop search. Because he did not raise this argument in
his pretrial motion to suppress, it is waived. See U.S. v. Green, 691
F.3d 960 (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit 2012) (`[T]he mere
filing of a motion is not sufficient to avoid waiver of specific arguments that
are advanced for the first time on appeal. The Rule 12 waiver provision applies
not only to the failure to make a pretrial motion, but also to the failure to
include a particular argument in the motion’). . . .
Regardless, because the laptop search
did not violate Goodale's constitutional rights, his statements were not fruit
of the poisonous tree.
U.S. v. Goodale, supra. Rule 12(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which governs the use of motions to suppress evidence and for other
reasons, says a party waives an issue if it is not raised in a motion within
the time frame set by the district court judge.
For these and other reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed
his conviction and sentence. U.S. v.
Goodale, supra.
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