United States v. Charles Marvin Watkins

760 F.3d 1271, 2014 WL 3702578, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 14261, 25 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 186
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedJuly 28, 2014
Docket12-12549
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 760 F.3d 1271 (United States v. Charles Marvin Watkins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Charles Marvin Watkins, 760 F.3d 1271, 2014 WL 3702578, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 14261, 25 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 186 (11th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge:

Charles Marvin Watkins agreed to assist law enforcement in a murder investigation after the body of a seven-year-old girl, with whom he was acquainted, was found in a landfill. When questioned by an investigating officer, he admitted to having downloaded and viewed child pornography. A detective then asked Mr. *1274 Watkins for permission to search his computers for information relevant to the murder investigation. After being assured that the officer was not searching for his child pornography but only for clues to the girl’s murder from sites she had visited on the computers while visiting his home, Mr. Watkins agreed to a search. His wife later independently consented to a general search of the computers.

Evidence of child pornography from the search was used subsequently to charge Mr. Watkins under 18 U.S.C. § 2252 for receipt of child pornography by computer over the internet. Mr. Watkins moved to suppress the evidence from the computers. A magistrate judge held a hearing and recommended denial of the motion. After reviewing the record, the district court denied the motion. It reasoned that the detective’s assurances about the scope of the search had limited Mr. Watkins’s consent to evidence relevant to the murder investigation, but that Mrs. Watkins’s consent authorized a general search and therefore permitted discovery of the child pornography evidence. The district court held that the search was not invalid under Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103, 126 S.Ct. 1515, 164 L.Ed.2d 208 (2006), because Mr. Watkins had not expressed an objection when his wife consented to an unlimited search. Mr. Watkins moved for reconsideration of the suppression order and to reopen the suppression hearing; his motion was denied. After a bench trial on the charged offense, Mr. Watkins was found guilty based on stipulated facts and was sentenced to 60 months’ imprisonment. He timely appealed.

We now determine that the search was valid because, despite the infirmities that the district court detected in Mr. Watkins’s consent to search the computers, Mrs. Watkins consented to a full search of the computers, and Mr. Watkins failed to show that the search violated his rights under Randolph. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I

BACKGROUND

A.

1.

Somer Thompson, a seven-year-old girl, was murdered after she disappeared while walking home from school on October 19, 2009. 1 She frequently had played with Mr. Watkins’s grandchildren and other children at his home. Following her disappearance, Mr. Watkins was questioned by several local law enforcement officers as well as agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”).

On October 24, 2009, three days after Thompson’s body was found in a Georgia landfill, FBI Special Agent Jonathan MacDonald and Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent Keesha Woessner visited Mr. Watkins’s home to talk to him about the murder. Agent MacDonald asked Mr. Watkins for permission to search his computer; he agreed. The agent looked at the internet search history and desktop items on the computer and unsuccessfully tried to run an FBI program to isolate images and videos. The agent also noted that LimeWire, a peer-to-peer file-sharing program, was running on the computer. The agent wrote down the computer’s internet protocol address for later use because he knew that LimeWire *1275 was sometimes used to trade child pornography.

Later that day, an investigator from the Clay County Sheriffs Office asked Mr. Watkins to visit the office, and Mr. Watkins agreed. At the office, Mr. Watkins was interviewed by Detective Charlie Sharman. The interview was recorded on video. The detective told Mr. Watkins that he was being questioned about the disappearance of Somer Thompson. Mr. Watkins expressed a willingness to help in any way he could.

As the interview progressed, Mr. Watkins stated that his grandchildren and their friends, including Somer Thompson, had visited his house regularly. The children would use the internet to play online computer games, including Webkinz and Club Penguin. When questioned about who might have preyed on Somer Thompson, Mr. Watkins, “speculating about who might [have] be[en] responsible for Somer’s abduction and murder, admitted he had previously downloaded and[] viewed child pornography on his computer.” 2 He “stated that he had knowledge of predators because he had viewed child pornography in the past.” 3 Upon further questioning, Mr. Watkins admitted that he had used LimeWire to download and view child pornography approximately one hundred times.

The detective then questioned Mr. Watkins about his child pornography activities and acknowledged that the questions might be “embarrassing ... but ... we’re trying to get to the bottom of it.” 4 While Detective Sharman was briefly out of the room, but while the video recording continued, Mr. Watkins received a phone call from his wife. During the course of the call, he told his wife that he was being questioned about the children’s computer use. He also related that he had told investigators about looking at some “pretty nasty stuff’ 5 accessible through Lime-Wire. 6

When Detective Sharman returned to the interview room, Mr. Watkins told the detective that the questioning was difficult for him because “some things ... might put [him] in a bad light,” but that he had “to be honest” with the detective. 7 Mr. Watkins stated that he was “more concerned” about Somer Thompson. 8 The detective replied, “[t]hat is why we are here. We are not interested in ... what’s on the computer unless there is something on the computer....” 9 The detective did not finish his sentence because Mr. Watkins interrupted, saying, “[i]f it’s relevant, you know.” 10

Detective Sharman then asked Mr. Watkins for access to the three computers in *1276 his home because they “may hold something about this, and they may not, you know.” 11 Mr. Watkins agreed to help the detective with “whatever [he] need[ed]” from the computers. 12 The detective then stated:

What I want to do is just get — just get a consent to look and see what — now you told me a couple of programs [Mr. Watkins’s computers] got, and just see if anyone has been trying to pe[ek] in there or talk in there, if these people on the other end are who they say they are.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
760 F.3d 1271, 2014 WL 3702578, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 14261, 25 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 186, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-charles-marvin-watkins-ca11-2014.