State v. Young

CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedJune 13, 2024
Docket1 CA-CR 23-0355
StatusPublished

This text of State v. Young (State v. Young) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Young, (Ark. Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

IN THE ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION ONE

STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee/Cross-Appellant,

v.

RANDY SCOTT YOUNG, Appellant/Cross-Appellee.

No. 1 CA-CR 23-0355 FILED 06-13-2024

Appeal from the Superior Court in Yavapai County No. V1300CR201880059 The Honorable Krista M. Carman, Judge The Honorable Tina R. Ainley, Judge The Honorable Michael R. Bluff, Judge

AFFIRMED IN PART; DISMISSED IN PART

COUNSEL

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Phoenix By Joshua C. Smith Counsel for Appellee/Cross-Appellant

Zickerman Law Office, Flagstaff By Adam Zickerman Counsel for Appellant/Cross-Appellee STATE v. YOUNG Opinion of the Court

OPINION

Presiding Judge Paul J. McMurdie delivered the Court’s opinion, in which Judge Maria Elena Cruz and Judge Cynthia J. Bailey joined.

M c M U R D I E, Judge:

¶1 Defendant Randy Young appeals his convictions and sentences for six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. In a previous case, the superior court suppressed evidence found on Young’s laptop computer. The State then moved to dismiss the charges without prejudice, which the court granted. Some six years later, the State refiled the charges. The court denied Young’s suppression motion in the refiled case, and the jurors convicted him. On appeal, Young argues that the court erred by not following the previous suppression order.

¶2 We hold that the superior court was not bound by the previous suppression order under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure (“Rule”) 16, the law of the case, or collateral estoppel. On the suppression motion’s merits, we hold that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to co-employees who are searching for non-criminal files (lesson plans) and accidentally stumble onto contraband (child pornography).

¶3 The State cross-appeals, challenging Young’s sentence as illegally lenient because the court ordered one count to run concurrently with, rather than consecutive to, the other counts. We dismiss the State’s cross-appeal because it was not timely filed.

¶4 Thus, we affirm Young’s convictions and sentences.

2 STATE v. YOUNG Opinion of the Court

FACTS1 AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

¶5 Young taught and coached at American Heritage Academy, a charter school formed by Steve Anderson, the school’s principal,2 and his wife. The principal ran the school, and some of his children worked there. Angela White, the principal’s daughter, taught history and English classes. Aaron Anderson, the principal’s son, was the school’s athletic director and assisted with technological services.

¶6 Young was the assistant athletic director. Young shared classroom space with White. In early 2012, White took over Young’s classes when his employment was suspended or terminated. White began looking for Young’s lesson plans and assumed the plans were on Young’s personal laptop in the classroom. The laptop appeared uncharged, so White brought it to Anderson to help her find the lesson plans.

¶7 Young’s laptop was password-protected, but Anderson knew Young’s password because they shared it to access each other’s sports schedules. Anderson successfully logged onto the computer using Young’s password. Once Anderson and White accessed the computer, they searched Young’s files for the lesson plans. During the search, they opened a file folder containing sexually explicit pictures of naked children.

¶8 Anderson and White contacted the principal and showed him the laptop. The principal viewed the images and called the police. After receiving a report that the school had a laptop with illegal images, the police visited the school. The principal gave Young’s laptop to the police. The police secured the laptop and obtained a search warrant based on the information given to them. They then searched the laptop and found pornographic images of children.

¶9 The State charged Young with multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. See A.R.S. § 13-3553(A)(2). Young moved to suppress the laptop evidence, claiming a Fourth Amendment violation. He argued he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in his laptop, the school

1 We view the facts in the light most favorable to sustaining the judgment. State v. Mendoza, 248 Ariz. 6, 11, ¶ 1, n.1 (App. 2019).

2 The record also identifies Steve Anderson as the school’s “director,” “founder,” “superintendent,” “owner,” and “administrator.” For consistency, we call Steve Anderson the “principal.”

3 STATE v. YOUNG Opinion of the Court

employees were state actors who searched the laptop unlawfully without a warrant, and the police improperly seized the laptop without a warrant. In response, the State claimed there was no Fourth Amendment violation because Young abandoned his laptop at the school and had no legitimate privacy expectation. The superior court found that Young did not abandon the laptop and had a legitimate privacy expectation, so it suppressed the laptop evidence. The court dismissed the charges without prejudice on the State’s motion.

¶10 In 2018, the State re-charged Young with ten counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. Young moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing it was “unsupported by admissible evidence.” See Ariz. R. Crim. P. 16.4(b) (On the defendant’s motion, the superior court must dismiss the prosecution if the indictment is insufficient.). Young explained that the prosecution was based on the same evidence suppressed in the 2012 case, the State never appealed the suppression, and there was no new evidence supporting the charges. The State argued the prior suppression order did not bar it from re-litigating the matter.

¶11 Young also argued that re-litigating the evidence’s admissibility violated Rule 16.1(d). But the superior court found that Rule 16 did not apply because the 2012 and 2018 matters were separate cases. Under State v. Greenberg, the court determined it could reconsider the evidence’s admissibility. 236 Ariz. 592 (App. 2015).

¶12 Turning to the motion’s merits, the superior court held an evidentiary hearing. White, Anderson, and the principal recounted their actions and experiences when they accessed Young’s laptop in 2012. This time, along with arguing that Young had no legitimate privacy expectation in the laptop, the State also argued that no impermissible search occurred because the school employees were not state actors, and the police could lawfully seize the laptop based on what the co-employees discovered.

¶13 The court denied the motion to suppress. The court applied the test for searches performed by private citizens. It found that there was no evidence the government was involved in the initial search of Young’s laptop, and Young presented no evidence at the hearing showing White was looking for something other than Young’s lesson plans. Thus, White, Anderson, and the principal were “simply school employees looking for a class curriculum” when they discovered the illegal images. The court found no error in the police’s seizure, and there was no challenge to the search warrant’s validity.

4 STATE v. YOUNG Opinion of the Court

¶14 The case proceeded to trial. The court dismissed four counts without prejudice on the State’s motion. A jury found Young guilty on the six remaining counts. For five counts, the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that the depicted minors were under 15 years old. The court sentenced Young to consecutive ten-year sentences for the five counts. For the count without a jury finding that the depicted minor was under 15, the court sentenced Young to a concurrent sentence of four years.

¶15 Young appealed. The State cross-appealed. We have jurisdiction to review Young’s appeal under A.R.S.

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Bluebook (online)
State v. Young, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-young-arizctapp-2024.