United States v. Adams

337 F. App'x 336
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit·Decided July 24, 2009·No. 08-5261·Unpublished·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

*338 PER CURIAM:

Loren Adams was convicted of three counts of transportation of obscene matter by United States mail, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1461 (2006), and three counts of transportation of obscene matter for sale or distribution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1465 (2006). He received a sentence of thirty-three months’ imprisonment.

On appeal, Adams first contends that he is entitled to a new trial, as the jury failed to consider the charged material “as a whole,” as required by Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973). Therefore, according to Adams, the Government failed to meet its burden of proof that the videos, taken as a whole, appealed to the prurient interest and lacked serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Second, Adams contends that the judge abused his discretion in refusing to allow Adams to call a witness to testify as to the online availability of materials substantially identical to those charged in the offense.

I. Sufficiency of Evidence

Adams first challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, arguing that the Government failed to satisfy its burden of proving that the charged materials, taken as a whole, were obscene. When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, this court’s “role is limited to considering whether there is substantial evidence, taking the view most favorable to the Government, to support the conviction.” United States v. Whorley, 550 F.3d 326, 338 (4th Cir.2008) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). “[Sjubstantial evidence is evidence that a reasonable finder of fact could accept as adequate and sufficient to support a conclusion of a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Burgos, 94 F.3d 849, 862 (4th Cir.1996) (en banc). We do not review the credibility of witnesses and assume the jury resolved all contradictions in the testimony in favor of the Government. United States v. Harvey, 532 F.3d 326, 333 (4th Cir.2008).

Obscene material does not enjoy the protection of the First Amendment. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 23, 93 S.Ct. 2607, 37 L.Ed.2d 419 (1973). In order to demonstrate that relevant material is obscene, the Government must prove that (1) “the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;” (2) “the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law;” and (3) “the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Id. at 24, 93 S.Ct. 2607 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

Here, the evidence before the jury was more than sufficient to support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, despite the jury’s failure to view the films in their entirety. The Government introduced the complete movies into evidence, and played a representative portion of each video in open court. The representative portions of both “Doggie3Some” and “Anal Doggie and Horse” depicted women engaging in sexual acts with dogs and a horse, and the representative portion of the third film, “Fisting 1,” depicted women being penetrated by large objects. The federal agent responsible for ordering the movies from Adams testified as to the contents of the remainder of the films. The agent testified that he had viewed each movie in its entirety, summarized the remainder of the films for the jury, and stated that the unplayed portion of each showed sexual acts similar to those contained in the excerpts. Bradley also read aloud Adam’s website’s descriptions of the films to the jury, and testified that the descriptions *339 accurately detailed the content of each movie. Accordingly, we find that the Government presented evidence sufficient to support the jury’s conclusions that, taken as a whole, the films appealed to prurient sexual interests and lacked serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Moreover, Adams never contended, and does not now assert, that the portions played in court were not representative of the videos in them entirety, or that the films had any serious value, whether literary, artistic, political, or scientific. Similarly, Adams never requested that the jury watch the films in their entirety, and does not now contend that, had the jurors watched the entirety of each film, they would have reached a different conclusion. Therefore, because it is clear “beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained,” Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 15, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted), any error in the jury’s failure to view the films in their entirety is harmless.

II. Exclusion of Evidence

Adams next asserts that the district court erred in refusing to allow him to introduce evidence demonstrating that materials substantially similar to the charged films were accessible in Martinsburg through the internet. Specifically, Adams intended to call a computer systems administrator who would testify that, by entering the terms “fisting” and “bestiality” into search engines, he found thousands of articles, movies, links, and photos devoted to these terms, which were available to anyone in the Martinsburg, West Virginia area with internet access.

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United States v. Adams, 337 F. App'x 336 (4th Cir. 2009).

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