United States v. Benoit, No. 19-1476

• Citation: 975 F.3d 20
• Decision Date: 01 September 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-1476
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Zachary BENOIT, Defendant, Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

975 F.3d 20

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,

v.Zachary BENOIT, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 19-1476

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

September 1, 2020

Dorothy E. Graham, Assistant Federal Public Defender, on brief for appellant.

Seth R. Aframe, Assistant United States Attorney, and Scott W. Murray, United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.

Before Howard, Chief Judge, Lynch and Thompson, Circuit Judges.

THOMPSON, Circuit Judge.

The defendant, Zachary Benoit, pleaded guilty to one count of transporting child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. Benoit challenges the substantive reasonableness of his prison sentence and argues the district court abused its discretion when it imposed two special conditions of supervised release. After careful consideration, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

A. The Crimes

Because Benoit pleaded guilty, we draw the facts of the case from the transcript of the sentencing hearing and undisputed portions of the Presentence Report ("PSR"). See United States v. Bermúdez–Meléndez, 827 F.3d 160, 162 (1st Cir. 2016).

In the summer and fall of 2017, New Hampshire law enforcement was investigating the online sharing of child sexual abuse images. The investigation identified Benoit's IP address as one of the computers downloading and sharing hundreds of images and videos of children being sexually and physically abused. After executing a search warrant at Benoit's home, police uncovered multiple computers and hardware for digital storage. Officers confiscated and examined those devices and ultimately discovered 299 pictures and 418 videos depicting the sexual and physical abuse of children.

Benoit agreed to be interviewed by a detective and disclosed several things that prove relevant to our analysis. Benoit explained that he used multiple file sharing platforms to acquire child pornography. He admitted knowing that one of the platforms automatically permitted other users to access files from his library of child pornography and that he used another application to trade child pornography files with another user. He sent one user about 50 child pornography files in exchange for 100 similar files.

Benoit was not particularly discriminatory, disclosing to the detective that he liked all types of child pornography, though he preferred images of young girls. He built his library of pornography based on the searches of "other pedophiles," deleting files he downloaded if the children in them were "too young," which he explained was a child under five or six years old. He directed the detective to a file folder that had five videos depicting extensive sexual abuse and physical torture of a child under two years old. He described this folder as "disgusting" but held onto it. His interests in pornography, he declared, had become extreme and offensive since he first started downloading these images.

When asked about physical contact with children, Benoit denied ever abusing his own son or any child. He further denied speaking to a child or to anyone representing themselves to be a child online.

In 2018, a grand jury indicted Benoit for Transportation of Child Pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(1), and Possession of Child Pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B).

B. Dr. Guidry's Assessment

On September 18, 2018, at the request of his attorney, Benoit met with a psychologist, Dr. Laurie L. Guidry (an expert hired by the defendant), for a psychosexual risk assessment. Benoit reported that he started masturbating to images of child sexual abuse when he was twenty-three years old (he was twenty-seven when he was arrested in this case). Benoit explained he learned he could download pornographic videos and started to view pornography that depicted pre-teens and then prepubescent females. While he did not prefer a particular age group, he did not like toddlers and babies, so, if he was searching for pornography, he would search for content depicting children aged nine years and older. Though he sometimes downloaded pornography that included the torture of children, Benoit said that he was not interested in material that indicated force. He also acknowledged that he understood children could not consent to sexual activity, and he again denied that he ever pursued or engaged in sexual contact with a child. At age eight, he divulged, he and his four-year-old step-sister engaged in sexual misconduct.¹ When his parents discovered this behavior, they stopped it and got Benoit into counseling.

Dr. Guidry diagnosed Benoit with patterns of social anxiety hindering his ability to have comfortable interpersonal relationships and Dysthymic Disorder because he presented with symptoms of a generally depressed mood. Dr. Guidry determined that when comparing Benoit to other child pornography offenders, he "present[ed] a relatively low risk for recidivating with a contact sexual offense." This was based, in part, on what Dr. Guidry described as Benoit's "social phobia and reluctance to establish interpersonal connections" making it unlikely he would act on a sexual interest in children. Dr. Guidry further opined that Benoit's risk of committing another online sexual offense was "elevated if untreated but manageable if his psychological vulnerabilities are adequately addressed in treatment."

C. The Guilty Plea and Sentencing

On November 7, 2018, Benoit pleaded guilty without a plea agreement. Six month later, the District Court held Benoit's sentencing hearing. The District Court calculated Benoit's total offense level to be 35 and his criminal history category to be I, yielding a sentencing guideline range of 168 to 210 months.² Benoit did not object to this calculation. Citing the number of files in Benoit's possession, the amount of violence in some of the images, and Benoit's practice of sharing the images with others, including trading files for more child pornography, the government recommended a 168-month sentence. Defense counsel requested a 60-month sentence, arguing that, per Dr. Guidry's conclusion (whose report was filed under seal with Benoit's sentencing memo), Benoit presented a low risk of committing a contact sexual offense upon release, Benoit was cooperative with investigators, and he complied with all supervision conditions while he was released after his arrest. The defendant was meted out a 156-month prison term.

Backing up for a moment, probation also recommended that Benoit's conditions of supervised release include restrictions on his contact with children. Specifically, the PSR included a recommended condition, Condition #1, that Benoit be prohibited from direct contact with any child under the age of 18, including his own son, without the permission of his probation officer. Condition #1 defined direct contact as "written communication, in-person communication, or physical contact," but not "incidental contact during ordinary daily activities in public places." The PSR also included a recommended condition, Condition #6, that Benoit not go "any place where [he] know[s] children under the age of 18 are likely to be, including parks, schools, playgrounds, and childcare facilities."

"Unreasonable" is how Benoit framed his objection to these conditions. Both, he argued, would restrict his contact with his son and any future children he may have, thus "interfer[ing] with his ability and right to raise his own children."

Disagreeing, the district court found the supervised release conditions to be "appropriate because ... they are reasonably related to the Section 3553(a) factors; they do not involve any greater deprivation of liberty than is necessary; and [they are] consistent with the policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission under the facts of this case." The court amended Condition #6 to prohibit Benoit from going to places where he knows children are likely to be only without permission from his probation officer. With that change to Condition #6, the district court imposed Conditions #1 and #6 (as well as other conditions not relevant here).

OUR TAKE

On appeal, Benoit asks us to review both the length of his prison sentence and the special conditions restricting his contact with children, protestations he made below. We begin our analysis with Benoit's term of incarceration by considering whether the sentencing judge so poorly balanced the relevant considerations that the resulting sentence was unreasonable. We then turn to Benoit's argument about his contact with children, specifically his three-year-old son, after his release from prison.

A. Benoit's 156-Month Sentence

We review Benoit's sentence for an abuse of the sentencing judge's discretion. United States v. Perretta, 804 F.3d 53, 56 (1st Cir. 2015). "The touchstone of abuse of discretion review in federal sentencing is reasonableness." United States v. Vargas–Dávila, 649 F.3d 129, 130 (1st Cir. 2011) (citing Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 46, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007) ). A sentence is substantively unreasonable (and the sentencing judge has therefore abused his discretion) "only if it falls beyond the expansive 'universe of reasonable sentencing outcomes.' " United States v. Rodríguez-Torres, 939 F.3d 16, 43 (1st Cir. 2019) (quoting Bermúdez-Meléndez, 827 F.3d at 167). Ever mindful that "[r]easonableness is itself an inherently fluid concept," Bermúdez-Meléndez, 827 F.3d at 167, we affirm where the sentencing judge "gave a plausible explanation and reached a defensible result," United States v. Chisholm, 940 F.3d 119, 132 (1st Cir. 2019) (citation omitted), cert. denied, ––– U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 1224, 206 L.Ed.2d 219 (2020). Put another way, we do not reverse simply because we would have sentenced the defendant differently. United States v. Martin, 520 F.3d 87, 92 (1st Cir. 2008).

Before imposing a sentence, the district court must calculate the sentencing guideline range, which serves as a " 'starting point and the initial benchmark,' but which may not be presumed...