U.S. v. Williams

• Decision Date: 21 January 2010
• Docket Number: No. 08-5000.,08-5000.
• Citation: U.S. v. Williams, 592 F.3d 511 (4th Cir. 2010)
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Curtis Robert WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

592 F.3d 511

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Curtis Robert WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 08-5000.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: September 22, 2009.

Decided: January 21, 2010.

ARGUED:

Todd M. Richman, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Andrew McCormack, Office of the United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

Michael S. Nachmanoff, Federal Public Defender, Alexandria, Virginia; Ian Conner, Hunton & Williams, LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Dana J. Boente, Acting United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.

Before NIEMEYER and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and JAMES P. JONES, Chief United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge NIEMEYER wrote the opinion, in which Judge DUNCAN and Judge JONES joined.

OPINION

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

Based on evidence seized from his home during execution of a search warrant, Curtis Williams was convicted of possession of an unregistered machine gun and an unregistered silencer, in violation of 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(d) and 5871, and possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(a)(5)(B) and 2256(8)(A). The district court sentenced him to 41 months' imprisonment.

Before trial, Williams filed a motion to suppress the machine gun, the silencer, and a DVD containing the pornography, arguing that the search for and seizure of them exceeded the scope of the search warrant and that their seizure was not justified by the "plain-view" exception to the warrant requirement. The district court denied the motion, and Williams now appeals this ruling.

For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the search for and seizure of the child pornography fell within the scope of the warrant or, alternatively, that its seizure was justified under the plain-view exception to the warrant requirement. We conclude that the seizure of the machine gun and silencer was justified by the plain-view exception. Accordingly, we affirm.

I

In September 2007, the Fairfax Baptist Temple in Fairfax Station, Virginia, began receiving threatening e-mail messages from an individual identifying himself as "Franklin Pugh." Similar and related e-mails were later received from several other e-mail accounts, registered in the names of children attending the Fairfax Baptist Temple School, who had been referred to in the earlier e-mails.

In an e-mail dated October 16, 2007, Pugh named several young boys who attended the Fairfax Baptist Temple School, describing their physical characteristics. He stated that he was a pedophile, that he could not face life without having sex with the boys, and that he could not attend the Fairfax Baptist Temple again unless he could give oral sex to a boy at the church whom he identified by name. At the end of the e-mail, he stated, "I know your boy's names. I know where they go for lunch after church. I know where they live. I know when they come and leave school. There's boys I'd love to sleep with right now. There is an endless supply. Boy dick is everywhere."

In an e-mail dated October 22, 2007, the sender, now identifying himself as one of the boys named in an earlier e-mail, wrote in the same vein as earlier e-mails. After sending several more e-mails, the sender announced that he would be getting a new account to send further messages. Nonetheless, several more e-mails were sent under this name, continuing to discuss molesting the boys at the Fairfax Baptist Temple School, sacrificing them to God like Abraham and Isaac, and having sex with one of the boys post-sacrifice, unless "God makes me burn him."

Beginning on October 24, 2007, similar e-mails were received from an account registered under the name of the father of the pastor of Fairfax Baptist Temple. Again the messages discussed molesting the boys there. One of these e-mails included the following passage:

I think I might be close to getting saved. Jesus allowed me to see [Boy 1's] erection last night. I prayed all day and all night and Jesus showed it to me. Just like Isaac's and Ishmael's penis[es] in the bible book. [Boy 1] is the most beautiful boy I have ever seen. Why did God make boys so beautiful if we aren't allowed to enjoy them? I know it will be a sin to have sex with [Boy 1] or [Boy 2] or especially the younger boys, but I can't see any way not to do it. Now that Jesus showed me his erection I know it is alright to love [Boy 1].

Upon investigation, the Fairfax County Police determined that at least one of the e-mail accounts from which e-mails had been received had been accessed repeatedly by an Internet account registered to Karol Williams, in Clifton, Virginia, who is the wife of the defendant, Curtis Williams. Both Karol and Curtis were active members of the Fairfax Baptist Temple. Upon learning this, the police applied for a warrant to search Karol and Curtis Williams' home.

In the affidavit supporting the warrant application, Fairfax County Detective Craig Paul summarized the e-mails, detailed the police investigation to date, and stated that the evidence supported his belief that violations of state law had occurred, particularly § 18.2-60 of the Virginia Code, prohibiting any person from communicating threats to kill or do bodily harm to persons at elementary, middle, or secondary schools, and § 18.2-152.7:1, prohibiting harassment by computer by communicating "obscene, vulgar, profane, lewd, lascivious, or indecent language, or mak[ing] any suggestion or proposal of an obscene nature." To support his concern for the safety of the boys at the school, Detective Paul highlighted the e-mail statements, "I know your boy's names. I know where they go for lunch after church. I know where they live. I know when they come and leave school."

In addition to providing the factual basis for the violations, Detective Paul explained, "It has been your Affiant's training and experience that adults who are engaged in the sexual exploitation of children keep images and related documents with them. They also collect images and texts describing sexual interaction with minors and child erotica."¹ The detective described the child pornography market, the use of computers and other recording devices, and the need to seize and search various types of electronic media to locate evidence of the threat crimes, including evidence properly characterized as child pornography.

Based on Detective Paul's affidavit, a Fairfax County magistrate issued a search warrant on October 25, 2007, that "commanded" officers to search for and seize from the home of Karol and Curtis Williams:

Any and all computer systems and digital storage media, videotapes, videotape recorders, documents, photographs, and Instrumentalities indicat[ive] of the offense of § 18.2-152.7:1 Harassment by Computer and § 18.2-60 Threats of death or bodily injury to a person or member of his family; threats to commit serious bodily harm to persons on school property, Code of Virginia (as amended).

Police, along with the FBI, executed the warrant the next day and seized several computers, CDs, DVDs, and other electronic media devices.

The police also seized a machine gun and a silencer, both without serial numbers, which they discovered during their search in a small lockbox in Williams' garage. Detective Peter Charles found the lockbox while searching the garage, and, believing that it might contain evidence authorized by the warrant, he opened it. Inside, Detective Charles observed a machine gun and silencer, although it was not immediately clear that these firearms were illegally owned. Detective Charles picked up the gun to determine whether it was loaded and, during the course of this inspection, noticed that neither the gun nor the silencer had a serial number on it. As Detective Charles later explained, "Based on the examination, which is primarily for my own safety, to make sure [the gun] wasn't loaded, I noticed that neither the silencer nor the weapon itself had any serial numbers. In my experience and training, there is no reason for any weapon to have—not have any serial numbers and still be legally owned." Having identified the guns and silencer as contraband, Detective Charles seized them and continued his search.

The FBI agents who had participated in the search of the Williams' house took the computers and electronic media and later searched their contents. During the course of that search, FBI Agent Michael French reported in an e-mail sent to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia that "we found many deleted images of young male erotica from September-October 2007. We also found [that] the anonymizer software TOR had been installed." He concluded by saying that he hoped to find Williams' "collection" on the lap top and USB thumbdrives the following week.

Sometime later during his search, Agent French opened a DVD that had been seized from the Williams' home, labeled with the words, "Virus Shield, Quaranteed Files, Destroy." Upon opening the DVD, he observed over a thousand images in "thumbnail view" of minor boys, some of which were sexually suggestive and some of which were sexually explicit. Of the total number of images, approximately 39 constituted child pornography.²

Williams was indicted on two counts of possession of an unregistered firearm (the machine gun and the silencer), in violation of 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(d) and 5871, and one count of possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(a)(5)(B) and 2256(8)(A). After he was indicted, Williams filed a motion to suppress the child pornography, the machine gun, and the silencer, contending that their seizure exceeded the scope of the warrant and was not justified by the plain-view exception to the warrant requirement.

The district court denied Williams' motion. The court explained, with respect to the child...