Commonwealth v. Guastucci

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court·Decided October 14, 2020·No. SJC 12829·Published

Opinion

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SJC-12829 COMMONWEALTH vs. ROBERT GUASTUCCI.

Middlesex. March 5, 2020. - October 14, 2020.

Present: Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & Kafker, JJ.1

Obscenity, Child pornography. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Probable cause. Probable Cause. Search and Seizure, Computer, Probable cause, Affidavit. Evidence, Information stored on computer. Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress.

Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court Department on February 15, 2018.

A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by John T.

Lu, J., and a conditional plea of guilty was accepted by him.

The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for direct appellate review.

Benjamin L. Falkner for the defendant.

Gabriel Pell, Assistant District Attorney, for the Commonwealth.

1 Chief Justice Gants participated in the deliberation on this case prior to his death.

GAZIANO, J. On March 15, 2017, an unknown computer user uploaded an image of child pornography to an Internet-based communication service that is designed to share files and "chat" with others. After receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), police tracked the specific computer address by which the device had connected to the Internet to the defendant's house in Tyngsboro, and an account owned by his wife. Seven months after the alleged illegal activity, on October 18, 2017, a State police trooper obtained a warrant authorizing a search of all computer systems and digital storage devices located within the residence for evidence of child pornography. Following execution of the search warrant, the defendant's laptop computer and a "flash" drive were seized; the defendant subsequently was indicted on two counts of possession of child pornography, in violation of G. L. c. 272, § 29C, as a result of images found on these devices.

At issue in this appeal is whether the information in the search warrant affidavit was too stale to establish probable cause to believe that evidence of child pornography would be found on computers or digital storage devices at the time of the search, seven months after the Internet activity with one specific image. A Superior Court judge denied the motion to suppress after finding that the seven-month period was "less

than ideal, but . . . a tolerable amount of delay." The defendant subsequently entered a conditional guilty plea to both charges, see Commonwealth v. Gomez, 480 Mass. 240, 252 (2018), and we allowed his petition for direct appellate review. Because we conclude that there was sufficient evidence for a magistrate to have found probable cause, we affirm.

1. Background. a. Investigation and warrant application.

On October 18, 2017, State police Trooper Christopher MacDonald applied for a warrant to search computers and digital storage devices located within a single-family house in Tyngsboro. In support of the warrant application, McDonald submitted a ten- page affidavit and an attached exhibit. The exhibit described, in general terms, the investigation of child pornography that has been distributed over the Internet and stored in a suspect's computer. The affidavit and exhibit then stated the following.

On March 16, 2017, electronic service provider Skype.com (Skype) filed a report with NCMEC of a suspected incident of possession or distribution of child pornography.2 Skype is a

2 The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), among other functions, operates a "CyberTip line" that the public may use to report suspected instances of Internetrelated child exploitation. Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2258A(a)(1)(A), Internet service providers are required to report suspected child pornography to NCMEC "as soon as reasonably possible." In its role as a clearing house for this type information, NCMEC forwards these tips to Federal and State law enforcement agencies. See 18 U.S.C. § 2258A(c)(1)-(3).

Web-based application that provides its customers with video communication and voice call services, as well as "chat" services where typed messages are exchanged interactively. Skype users also may use the platform to exchange digital images and video files. According to the information reported by Skype, a computer user with a "screen name" of "live: boullett_1" at a particular Internet Service Protocol (IP) address uploaded a digital image believed to be child pornography on March 15, 2017. At a date not specified in the affidavit, NCMEC forwarded the information contained in the tip to the State police computer crimes unit.

On May 5, 2017, pursuant to an administrative subpoena issued by the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, the internet service provider (ISP) provided records for its subscriber at that IP address. The ISP identified the subscriber, as of March 15, 2017, as the defendant's spouse, with a service address in Tyngsboro. The Internet account, which had been created in August of 2007, listed three user names; none of these matched the Skype screen name "live: boullett_1" that had been used to upload the image.

On September 27, 2017, McDonald viewed the digital image uploaded to Skype and confirmed that it depicted child pornography. That day, he queried the registry of motor vehicles for vehicles and driver's licenses registered at the

street address in Tyngsboro. He found three listed drivers: the defendant, his spouse, and their child. On October 11, 2017, MacDonald conducted surveillance of the single-family home and "was unable to locate any open unprotected wireless networks within the vicinity of the residence."

In addition to the facts involving this investigation, MacDonald's affidavit included generalized information about possession of child pornography. He averred that "[t]hose who have possessed and/or disseminated child pornography have an interest or preference in the sexual activity of children" and are "likely to keep secreted, but readily at hand, sexually explicit visual images depicting children. . . . These depictions tend to be extremely important to such individuals and are likely to remain in the possession of or under control of such an individual for extensive time periods."

He further averred that, in the event an individual with an interest in child pornography were to delete a file, it could be possible to recover that evidence from the computer's hard drive or temporary storage "months or years" after it had been deleted. The ability to recover deleted files depends upon many factors, including whether temporary files have been overwritten by new data; whether the hard drive has been damaged; and whether the computer user effectively encrypted the data.

The search warrant was issued, and police executed the warrant on October 19, 2017. The search yielded a laptop computer and a flash drive, both owned by the defendant, which contained images of child pornography.

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