United States v. Apple MacPro Computer
| Decision Date | 06 February 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 17-3205,17-3205 |
| Citation | 949 F.3d 102 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America v. APPLE MACPRO COMPUTER, Apple Mac Mini Computer, Apple iPhone 6 Plus Cellular Telephone, Western Digital My Book for Mac External Hard Drive, Western Digital My Book Velociraptor Duo External Hard Drive Francis Rawls, Appellant |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
In this case, we are asked to determine whether appellant, Francis Rawls, should be released from confinement for civil contempt. On September 30, 2015, Rawls was incarcerated for civil contempt after he failed to comply with a court order that he produce several of his seized devices in a fully unencrypted state. Since that day, more than four years ago, Rawls has been held in federal custody. Rawls seeks release arguing that 28 U.S.C. § 1826 limits his maximum permissible confinement for civil contempt to 18 months.
Because we conclude § 1826 applies to Rawls, we will reverse the order of the District Court and order Rawls’ release.
The circumstances surrounding Rawls’ present confinement for civil contempt began with an investigation into Rawls’ access to child pornography. As a part of that investigation, the Delaware County Criminal Investigations Unit executed a search warrant at Rawls’ residence, yielding an Apple iPhone 5S, an Apple iPhone 6 Plus, and an Apple Mac Pro Computer (the "Mac Pro") with two attached Western Digital External Hard Drives, all of which were protected with encryption software.1
Agents from the Department of Homeland Security then obtained a federal search warrant to examine the seized devices. Rawls voluntarily provided the password for the Apple iPhone 5S but did not provide the passwords to decrypt the Mac Pro or the external hard drives. Ultimately, forensic analysts discovered the password to decrypt the Mac Pro but could not determine the passwords to decrypt the external hard drives. Forensic examination of the Mac Pro revealed (1) an image of a pubescent girl in a sexually provocative position, (2) logs showing that the Mac Pro had been used to visit websites with titles common in child exploitation, and (3) that Rawls had downloaded thousands of files known to be child pornography. Those files, however, were not on the Mac Pro, but instead were stored on the encrypted external hard drives. In the course of their investigation, officers interviewed Rawls’ sister who stated that Rawls had shown her hundreds of images of child pornography on the encrypted external hard drives, which included videos of children who were nude and engaged in sex acts with other children. But, without a password to decrypt the hard drives, agents could not access the files themselves.
In August 2015, a Magistrate Judge ordered Rawls to produce all encrypted devices, including his two attached external hard drives, in a fully unencrypted state, pursuant to the All Writs Act (the "Decryption Order"). Rawls did not appeal the Decryption Order. Instead, he filed a motion to quash the Government’s application to compel decryption, arguing that his act of decrypting the devices would violate his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
Eventually, Rawls’ motion to quash was denied and Rawls was directed to fully comply with the Decryption Order. The Magistrate Judge acknowledged Rawls’ Fifth Amendment objection, but held that, because the Government possessed his devices and knew that their contents included child pornography, the act of decrypting the devices would not be testimonial for purposes of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
Approximately one week after the denial of Rawls’ motion to quash, Rawls and his counsel appeared at the Delaware County Police Department for the forensic examination of his devices. Rawls produced the Apple iPhone 6 Plus in a fully unencrypted state by entering three separate passwords on the device. The phone contained adult pornography, a video of Rawls’ four-year-old niece in which she was wearing only her underwear, and approximately twenty photographs which focused on the genitals of Rawls’ six-year-old niece. Rawls, however, stated that he could not remember the passwords necessary to decrypt the hard drives and entered several incorrect passwords during the forensic examination.
Following the forensic examination, the Government moved to show cause why Rawls should not be held in contempt for his failure to comply with the Decryption Order. Two hearings were held on the issue in which, "Rawls offered no on-the-record explanation for his present failure to comply."2 Based on the evidence presented, the District Court found that Rawls remembered the passwords needed to decrypt the hard drives but chose not to reveal them because of the devices’ contents. Thus, the District Court granted the Government’s motion to hold Rawls in civil contempt, stating "Rawls will be incarcerated indefinitely until he agrees to comply with and actually does comply with the [Decryption Order]."3 We affirmed the District Court’s contempt order holding, inter alia , that the Magistrate Judge did not err by finding that the Decryption Order did not implicate the Fifth Amendment privileged against self-incrimination.4
Rawls then filed a motion for a stay of the contempt order and for release, which is presently at issue. In that motion, Rawls argues that 28 U.S.C. § 1826(a) limits the maximum period of confinement for civil contempt to 18 months. The District Court denied his motion. We now consider Rawls’ appeal of that denial.
We have previously recognized that Congress, through 28 U.S.C. § 1826(a), placed a limit on the inherent authority of courts to hold individuals in civil contempt for their failure to comply with court orders.6 In full, § 1826(a) states:
Critically, in the final sentence of § 1826(a), the statute places an 18-month cap on the period of time a court can keep a witness confined for his or her refusal to "comply with an order of the court to testify or provide other information."8
The question in this case is simply whether § 1826(a) release.
Section 1826(a) ’s 18-month limitation applies to Rawls’ present confinement because (A) Rawls is a witness for the purposes of § 1826(a), (B) the proceedings to enforce the search warrant fall within the statute’s broad description of any "proceeding before or ancillary to any court or grand jury of the United States," (C) the Decryption Order is "an order of the court to testify or provide other information, including any book, paper, document, record, recording or other material," and (D) we read § 1826(a) to apply to the detention of any material witness, even if that person is also a suspect in connection with other offenses.
First, Rawls is a witness within the meaning of § 1826(a) both because he is being asked to provide testimonial information and because the statute reaches even non-testimonial acts of production.
A witness is, at the very least, "[s]omeone who gives testimony." Witness , Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019), and the Supreme Court has recognized that compliance with requests for evidence can constitute testimony.9 Notably, the testimonial value of production is not necessarily tied to the content of the evidence itself. "[B]y producing documents, one acknowledges that the documents exist, admits that the documents are in one’s custody, and concedes that the documents are those that the subpoena requests."10 As is pertinent to this case, in producing the passwords needed to decrypt the external hard drives, Rawls would be acknowledging that the hard drives were in his control and that he was capable of accessing them—an act with testimonial value.11
Moreover, as several of our sister circuits have held, a person may be a "witness" under § 1826(a) even when the evidence he refuses to produce is not considered "testimonial" for purposes of the Fifth Amendment. See In re Grand Jury Proceedings , 541 F.2d 464, 465 (5th Cir. 1976) (); United States v. Mitchell , 556 F.2d 371, 384 (6th Cir. 1977) (); In re Grand Jury Proceedings , 873 F.2d 238, 239 (9th Cir. 1989) (); In re Pantojas , 628 F.2d 701, 702 (1st Cir. 1980) ().
We have signaled our agreement by affirming the confinement of a grand jury witness under § 1826(a) for refusing to provide handwriting exemplars.12 Although we concluded, based on Supreme Court precedent,13 that the provision of exemplars was not "testimonial" for purposes of the Fifth Amendment, we did not question the District Court’s...
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...jurisdiction, limitations on venue , a standard of proof, and a neutral and detached magistrate." United States v. Apple MacPro Computer , 949 F.3d 102, 108 (3d Cir. 2020) (cleaned up) (emphasis added); see also United States v. Thorne , No. 18-cr-389, 548 F.Supp.3d 70, 131 & n.16 (D.D.C. J......
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