Youngman v. State
| Decision Date | 01 July 2022 |
| Docket Number | 2D21-2472 |
| Parties | LAWRENCE YOUNGMAN, Appellant, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Florida (US) |
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Polk County; Michael P. McDaniel Judge.
Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Richard J. Sanders Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jonathan S. Tannen Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
Lawrence Youngman appeals his judgment and sentences related to child pornography. Specifically, he challenges the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress numerous child pornography files seized from his personal computer. We have jurisdiction. See Fla. R. App. P. 9.030(b)(1)(A). Mr. Youngman lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the alphanumeric identification codes unique to each file he shared and otherwise made available to the public over a peer-to-peer file sharing network. Therefore, we affirm.
The Polk County Sheriff's Office (PCSO) commenced an online investigation of child pornography on BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing network. BitTorrent is publicly available. It allows users to share their computer's selected content over the BitTorrent network with other users and to search other users' shared content.
PCSO utilized a software program, Torrential Downpour, to scour BitTorrent's astronomical amount of shared content. Torrential Downpour is a Child Protection System (CPS) software available only to law enforcement. It searches for the "hash values" of known child pornographic content. See generally United States v. Hoeffener, 950 F.3d 1037, 1040-41 (8th Cir. 2020) ( ). A "hash value" is a thirty-two-digit alphanumeric code, a "unique digital fingerprint" for each piece of digital media; no two pieces have the same value. United States v. Sosa-Pintor, 741 Fed.Appx. 207, 208 (5th Cir. 2018).
To facilitate file searching and sharing among BitTorrent's users, BitTorrent users manually search by hash value for a particular file. However, Torrential Downpour is an automated program allowing for a much more efficient search of the users' catalogue of shared files. Importantly, Torrential Downpour does not allow law enforcement to access a BitTorrent user's hard drive, or the files stored thereon, only the hash value for the files shared by the user on the BitTorrent network. Torrential Downpour lacks the capacity to breach a device's firewall; instead, it searches BitTorrent for files with hash values known to be associated with child pornography. See Hoeffener, 950 F.3d at 1041 ("Torrential Downpour cannot access non-public areas or unshared portions of an investigated computer, nor can it override settings on a suspect's computer.").
Mr. Youngman installed BitTorrent and shared his computer's selected content with the public. Through its use of Torrential Downpour, PCSO identified two hash values for known child pornography shared from a device associated with Mr. Youngman's IP address. See Knight v. State, 154 So.3d 1157, 1159 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014) (). Based upon the hash value comparison, Torrential Downpour "asked" Mr. Youngman's computer if it still had the media associated with those hash values; his computer automatically responded in the affirmative. See Morales v. State, 274 So.3d 1213, 1218 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019) . PCSO was unable to complete the download of the media from Mr. Youngman's computer. Nonetheless, because PCSO knew that the hash values were associated with child pornography, it obtained a search warrant for Mr. Youngman's home and the electronic devices therein.
During its search, PCSO located a multitude of electronic files containing child pornography. Ultimately, the State charged Mr. Youngman with one count of promoting a sexual performance by a child and one hundred counts of possession of child pornography (enhanced). See § 827.071(3), (4), Fla. Stat. (2016).
Mr. Youngman filed a motion to suppress "[a]ny and all . . . files that were stored on [Mr. Youngman]'s personal computing devices." He asserted that the search warrant should never have issued because the "[hash value] evidence was obtained as a result of an illegal search without a warrant." He contended that the hash values themselves were protected, private information and that this "information was obtained by means of [Torrential Downpour,] a software search program available only to law enforcement and not to the general public." Thus, he claimed, the illicit images must be suppressed as "fruit of the poisonous tree." See generally Hatcher v. State, 834 So.2d 314, 317 n.4 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003) .
The trial court denied the motion. It reasoned that Mr. Youngman lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in his electronic files publicly stored and shared on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network. After Mr. Youngman entered a nolo plea, the trial court sentenced him to thirty years' imprisonment.
Reiterating many of the arguments made below, Mr. Youngman continues to claim that the trial court erred in denying his suppression motion, arguing that the hash value was obtained as part of an illegal search. He likens his case to Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 34 (2001), in which the Supreme Court "held that use of a thermal imager to scan for heat signals within a person's home constituted a search because that information[-]i.e., the heat signals[-]could not have been obtained without the use of a 'sense-enhancing technology' that intruded into the interior of a home, a 'constitutionally protected area.'" McClelland v. State, 255 So.3d 929, 932 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018) (quoting Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 34); see Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 29, 40 ().
"[I]n reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress this court must give deference to the trial court's factual findings if those findings are supported by competent, substantial evidence, but this court must review the trial court's ruling of law de novo." State v. Roman, 103 So.3d 922, 924 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012) (citing Jardines v. State, 73 So.3d 34, 54 (Fla. 2011)).
Analysis
"Technological advancement often collides with the Fourth Amendment." State v. Sylvestre, 254 So.3d 986, 990 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018); cf. NetChoice, LLC v. Att'y Gen., No. 21-12355, 2022 WL 1613291, at *1 (11th Cir. May 23, 2022) ("Not in their wildest dreams could anyone in the Founding generation have imagined Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or TikTok."). And yet, "[a]s technology has enhanced the Government's capacity to encroach upon areas normally guarded from inquisitive eyes, [the United States Supreme Court] has sought to 'assure [ ] preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted.'" Carpenter v. United States, 138 S.Ct. 2206, 2214 (2018) () (quoting Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 34).
To that end, whether it be the virtual reality crafted by technological innovation or our own corporeal reality, a court's analysis of any search and seizure remains the same; it is guided by article I, section 12, of the Florida Constitution and the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Morales, 274 So.3d at 1215 .
More specifically, "[t]he touchstone of any Fourth Amendment analysis is whether the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched." State v. M.B.W., 276 So.3d 501, 506 (Fla. 2d DCA 2019).
"For purposes of the Fourth Amendment, a 'search' occurs only when an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy is infringed by an agent of the government." Duke v. State, 255 So.3d 478, 480 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018) (citing United...
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