U.S. v. King

Citation509 F.3d 1338
Decision Date14 December 2007
Docket NumberNo. 07-11808. Non-Argument Calendar.,07-11808. Non-Argument Calendar.
PartiesUNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. Michael David KING, Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Before ANDERSON, CARNES and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Michael David King appeals his convictions for transportation of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(1), and possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B). The government cross-appeals challenging the district court's determination that King's conviction for transporting child pornography did not constitute a "prior conviction" for the purpose of imposing a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years imprisonment for the possession conviction, under 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(b)(2).

I.

In February 2003, while serving as a civilian contractor, King resided in a dormitory at the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. During his stay in the dormitory, King kept his personal laptop computer in his room and connected it to the base network. King understood that as a user of the base network, his activities on the network were subject to monitoring. King also believed that he had secured his computer so that others could not access the contents of its hard drive.

On February 23, 2003, an enlisted airman was searching the base network for music files when he came across King's computer on the network. The airman was able to access King's hard drive because it was a "shared" drive. In addition to finding music files on King's computer, the airman also discovered a pornographic movie and text files "of a pornographic nature." The airman reported his discovery to a military investigator who in turn referred the matter to a computer specialist. This specialist located King's computer and hard drive on the base network and verified the presence of pornographic videos and explicit text files on the computer. She also discovered a folder on the hard drive labeled "pedophilia." The folder, however, contained no files. The computer specialist did not employ any "special means" to access King's computer because "everybody on the entire network" could obtain the same access.

The computer specialist then filed a report with the investigator detailing what she had found, and the investigator obtained a search warrant for King's room. During a search of his room, military officials seized King's computer and also found CDs containing child pornography. They then referred the matter to the FBI for investigation and King left Saudi Arabia and returned to Montgomery, Alabama.

Two years later, the government obtained an indictment charging King with possession of child pornography.1 After his arrest, the government searched his residence pursuant to a search warrant and found additional CDs and hard drives containing over 30,000 images of child pornography.

At his arraignment, King entered a plea of not guilty. Shortly thereafter, he filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized from his dorm room in Saudi Arabia, arguing that the search violated the Fourth Amendment. Later, King filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained from his residence in Montgomery and a post-arrest statement, arguing that the evidence and statement were fruits of the illegal search of his dorm room. A magistrate judge issued a recommendation and report as to the first motion, recommending its denial. King objected to the report and recommendation, but the district court overruled his objection and denied the first motion to suppress, finding that King had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of his computer and, alternatively, that the search was a proper workplace search. The district court also considered King's second motion to suppress, without the benefit of a magistrate judge's report, and denied that motion as well.

King then entered into a plea agreement with the government pursuant to which he pleaded guilty to one count of transporting child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. The agreement allowed King to appeal the district court's denial of his motions to suppress. The agreement also reflected the parties' understanding that the government would recommend a sentence within the applicable sentencing guidelines range, subject to the government's right to seek a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence on the possession count on the basis of King's "prior conviction" for the transporting child pornography count.

The district court held a sentence proceeding on April 17, 2007. At that proceeding, the government argued for a ten-year mandatory minimum sentence as it was entitled to do under the plea agreement. The district court rejected the government's argument and sentenced King to 108 months imprisonment on both the transportation and possession charges to be served concurrently. That sentence was within the applicable guidelines range. King then appealed his conviction and the government cross-appealed, challenging the sentence imposed by the district court.

II.

King contends that the district court denied his motions to suppress based on the erroneous finding that he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer files that were remotely accessed over a military computer network, because the search of those files by the computer specialist exceeded the scope of her authority to monitor usage of the base network. King asserts that he sought to protect his computer files through security settings, he never knowingly exposed them to the public, and he was unaware that the files were shared on the network. King further challenges the district court's alternative finding that the military officials conducted a proper workplace search, arguing that this was a criminal investigation into King's personal computer located in his private dorm room. Finally, King asserts that the subsequent search warrant was invalid, as it was based on information that was obtained improperly through the remote search of his computer files.

We review a district court's denial of a defendant's motion to suppress under a mixed standard of review, examining the district court's findings of fact for clear error and the district court's application of law to those facts de novo. United States v. Ramirez, 476 F.3d 1231, 1235 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2924, 168 L.Ed.2d 253 (2007).

The Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures "protects an individual in those places where [he] can demonstrate a reasonable expectation of privacy against government intrusion," and "only individuals who actually enjoy the reasonable expectation of privacy have standing to challenge the validity of a government search." United States v. Cooper, 203 F.3d 1279, 1283-84 (11th Cir.2000). "The party alleging an unconstitutional search must establish both a subjective and an objective expectation of privacy. The subjective component requires that a person exhibit an actual expectation of privacy, while the objective component requires that the privacy expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable." United States v. Segura-Baltazar, 448 F.3d 1281, 1286 (11th Cir.2006) (quotation marks and citations omitted). Accordingly, the threshold issue in this case is whether King had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of his personal laptop computer when it was connected to the base network from his dorm room. See Cooper, 203 F.3d at 1284.

We have held that tenants of a multi-unit apartment building do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the common areas of the building, where the lock on the front door is "undependable" and "inoperable." United States v. Miravalles, 280 F.3d 1328, 1333 (11th Cir.2002). We have also held that even though a company has a subjective expectation of privacy in documents that are shredded and disposed of in a garbage bag that is placed within a private dumpster, the company's "subjective expectation of privacy is not one that society is prepared to accept as objectively reasonable" when the company fails to "take sufficient steps to restrict the public's access to its discarded garbage." United States v. Hall, 47 F.3d 1091, 1097 (11th Cir.1995).

King has not shown a legitimate expectation of privacy in his computer files. His experience with computer security and the affirmative steps he took to install security settings demonstrate a subjective expectation of privacy in the files, so the question becomes "whether society is prepared to accept [King's] subjective expectation of privacy as objectively reasonable." See id. at 1094.

It is undisputed that King's files were "shared" over the entire base network, and that everyone on the network had access to all of his files and could observe them in exactly the same manner as the computer specialist did. As the district court observed, rather than analyzing the military official's actions as a search of King's personal computer in his private dorm room, it is more accurate to say that the authorities conducted a search of the military network, and King's computer files were a part of that network. King's files were exposed to thousands of individuals with network access, and the military authorities encountered the files without employing any special means or intruding into any area which King could reasonably expect would remain private. The contents of his computer's hard drive were akin to items stored in the unsecured common areas of a multi-unit apartment building or put in a dumpster accessible to the public.

Because his expectation of privacy was unreasonable King suffered no violation of his Fourth Amendment rights when his computer files...

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