Commonwealth v. Hinds
| Decision Date | 05 March 2002 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. CHARLES HINDS, JR. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, SOSMAN, & CORDY, JJ.
Michael J. Traft (Rosanne Klovee with him) for the defendant.
Marguerite T. Grant, Assistant District Attorney (Lee Hettinger, Assistant District Attorney, with her) for the Commonwealth.
The defendant was charged in seven indictments with unlawful possession of child pornography. G. L. c. 272, § 29C. A Superior Court judge denied a pretrial motion to suppress images found on his personal computer. After a jury-waived trial, the defendant was convicted as charged on all seven indictments. The defendant appealed, arguing that (1) the judge erred in denying his motion to suppress and (2) the evidence was insufficient to prove that the defendant possessed child pornography. We transferred the case here on our own motion. We affirm the convictions.
1. Facts. We summarize the facts found by the judge in his ruling on the defendant's motion to suppress, "supplemented by uncontroverted facts adduced at the hearing." Commonwealth v. Torres, 433 Mass. 669, 670 (2001). On October 16, 1998, the defendant's uncle, John Hinds, was arrested in connection with two homicides and an aggravated assault against other members of the defendant's family. Police from several departments were involved in the investigation. They suspected that the shootings were motivated by a family dispute regarding the sale of property at 157 Fifth Street, Cambridge (Fifth Street), where John resided. As part of an ongoing investigation, they obtained a search warrant to seize John's computer at Fifth Street to examine any electronic mail, as well as other documents related to the family dispute. State Trooper Owen J. Boyle, Detective James Dwyer of the Cambridge police, and Detective Sergeant John J. McLean of the Medford police executed the warrant on October 20, 1998.
To gain entry to Fifth Street, the police went to adjacent property at 207½ Charles Street (Charles Street), where other family members, namely, the defendant; his brother, Thomas Hinds; their father, Charles Hinds, Sr.; and their grandmother, Mary Hinds resided. There they met Thomas, who let them into the Fifth Street home. McLean, who had worked for the Attorney General's "high tech squad" and had substantial experience in the investigation of computer related crimes, secured John's computer without viewing any of its contents.
In doing so, however, McLean discovered a "category 5" cabling wire plugged into a network interface card on John's computer. Knowing that other computers attached to a network could share data with John's computer, McLean asked Thomas where the wire led. Thomas, a UNIX system administrator at Sun Micro Systems, told him that the wire led from John's computer to a "hub" connected to Thomas's and the defendant's computers at Charles Street. The defendant, who held bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from Boston University, had set up the network linking the computers. McLean asked Thomas for permission to search the Charles Street computers, because relevant electronic mail could readily have been stored by John on those computers as well. Boyle told Thomas that, if he did not consent, they would obtain a warrant to search the Charles Street residence. Police had thus far obtained seven search warrants in the homicide investigation, and the family had been cooperative with the investigation. McLean told Thomas that he also would need the defendant's permission before examining the defendant's computer. He emphasized that the police were looking for electronic mail evidence pertaining to the homicides.
The defendant was not at home, but Thomas was able to contact him by using a paging device. Thomas spoke with the defendant about McLean's request. The defendant told Thomas that he did not want McLean to look at his computer until he returned. Thomas allowed McLean to examine his own computer, but first activated the network "hub," absent any request from McLean, located in the defendant's bedroom. McLean then began searching Thomas's system for electronic mail while Thomas watched. Noticing a directory entitled "Chuck," McLean asked Thomas what it was. Thomas said that it was the defendant's network hard drive. McLean then asked Thomas for permission to search the "Chuck" directory from Thomas's computer. Thomas telephoned the defendant, who spoke directly with McLean. McLean identified himself and asked the defendant for permission to search his computer for electronic mail. The defendant asked, "Is that all you're looking for?" McLean said yes, and told the defendant that he could refuse, but added that a warrant could be obtained. The defendant said that he would be home in one-half hour and told McLean to go ahead, but only to look for electronic mail.
McLean then returned to Thomas's computer, where he searched the defendant's "Chuck" directory. There were no security measures in place to prevent him from doing so. Although the defendant had once installed security measures, he had removed them. McLean scrolled through the "Chuck" directory, looking for electronic mail files, i.e., file names with "EML" or similar default extensions. Although the "Chuck" directory did not on its face disclose any files related to electronic mail, McLean observed numerous file names with the extension "JPG," which indicated that the files contained graphic images. Many of the files had sexually explicit titles, some indicating that children were possibly the subjects, including files entitled "10YRSLUT, YNGSX15, KIDSEX1, TEENSEX, 10YOANAL, and 13YRSUCK," to name a few. Of particular concern to McLean was a file entitled "2BOYS.JPG." From a prior case, McLean recognized "2BOYS.JPG" as a file name for a specific child pornography image. McLean opened the file and confirmed that "2BOYS.JPG" was child pornography. Having done so, he posted Dwyer at Thomas's computer, then went to the defendant's room and opened "2BOYS.JPG" on the defendant's computer to verify that it was the source of the file.
When the defendant arrived, McLean told him that a search of his computer had revealed child pornography. McLean seized the defendant's computer and later obtained a search warrant. A subsequent search revealed thousands of images of child pornography stored on the defendant's computer.
2. Motion to suppress. (a) Issues relating to Thomas's consent. The defendant first argues that McLean's entry into Charles Street was unlawful and that any subsequent search was therefore invalid because (1) the police lacked justification to expand the search under the warrant for Fifth Street and (2) the judge did not explicitly find that Thomas consented to McLean entering Charles Street.
"The `judge's denial of the defendant's motion [to suppress] implies resolution of factual issues in favor of the Commonwealth.'" Commonwealth v. Grandison, 433 Mass. 135, 137 (2001), quoting Commonwealth v. Lanoue, 392 Mass. 583, 586 n.2, 588 (1984).1 There was evidence to support valid consent by Thomas for McLean's entry into Charles Street. McLean testified that Thomas allowed him into Charles Street. Thomas testified, and the judge found, that he consented to a search of his own computer, which was at Charles Street, for electronic mail. Thus, even in the absence of an explicit finding that Thomas consented to McLean's entry, the judge's implied ruling to that effect was adequately supported by the record. Accordingly, the Commonwealth was not required to prove that circumstances justified an expansion of the search under the warrant for Fifth Street.
The defendant next argues that, even if Thomas consented to McLean's entry onto Charles Street and also consented to a search of his own computer for electronic mail, McLean exceeded the scope of Thomas's consent when he entered the defendant's "Chuck" directory from Thomas's computer through Thomas's network connection.
The judge concluded that because Thomas consented to a search of his own computer, and because his computer was connected to other computers on the network, Thomas's consent included consent to search all unsecured files on computers connected to the network to which Thomas had access. We need not decide this precise question because the judge also found that the defendant consented to a search of his own computer for electronic mail, and the record supports that finding.
(b) Issues relating to the defendant's consent. The defendant next argues, for the first time on appeal, that McLean exceeded the scope of the defendant's consent when he searched for electronic mail in the "Chuck" directory. At the motion hearing, the defendant testified that when McLean asked if he could search for electronic mail on his computer, he denied giving any consent because he knew that his computer contained child pornography.
In Commonwealth v. Cantalupo, 380 Mass. 173, 178 (1980), we said:
(Emphasis added.)
There was no evidence to suggest that either the defendant or McLean understood that consent to search for electronic mail was limited to specific directories, or that any locations were off limits. The only limitation the defendant placed on the search was content based, namely, that McLean could search only for electronic mail. See Commonwealth v. Sanna, 424 Mass. 92, 98-99 (1997) (). Once in the "Chuck" directory, McLean viewed the file...
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