United States v. Daniel Aleman, II

675 F. App'x 441
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 12, 2017
Docket16-40068 Summary Calendar
StatusUnpublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 675 F. App'x 441 (United States v. Daniel Aleman, II) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth 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. Daniel Aleman, II, 675 F. App'x 441 (5th Cir. 2017).

Opinion

PER CURIAM: *

Daniel H. Aleman was convicted following a stipulated bench trial of two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, The district court septenced him above the guidelines range to the statutory maximum sentence of a total of 720 months of imprisonment and a lifetime term of supervised release. He contests the denial of his motion to suppress evidence that officers found on his digital devices and disputes the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentence.

Aleman maintains that the district court should have granted his motion to suppress because the affidavit filed in support of the initial search warrant contained stale information and, therefore, lacked in-dicia of probable cause. He also argues that the search warrant authorized only the seizure of his digital devices but did not authorize a forensic search of their contents; he suggests that the search warrant failed to meet the particularity requirement and state that a search of the devices was permitted. We review de novo the denial of the suppression motion and examine the underlying factual findings for clear error. United States v. Robinson, 741 F.3d 588, 594 (5th Cir. 2014).

The contention that the information set forth in the affidavit was stale is unavailing. Aleman was suspected to have committed ah offense involving the recording of voyeuristic videos, i.e., “Invasive Visual Recording” in violation of Texas Penal Code § 21.15, and the warrant application identified that the evidence of that offense—i.e., the videos—was suspected to be on the recording device or on electronic media to which the videos were downloaded. Because digital images can be stored indefinitely, a reasonable officer could believe that the videos recorded by Aleman would be recoverable less than two months after their production. See United States v. Robinson, 741 F.3d 588, 597 (5th Cir. 2014); United States v. Allen, 625 F.3d 830, 842-43 (5th Cir. 2010).

Further, Aleman’s claim that the warrant was insufficiently particular because it authorized-only a seizure of the *443 digital items found in his home but not a forensic search of those items is unavailing. A reasonable officer could have understood the warrant to permit a review of Aleman’s electronic media. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922 n.23, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984); United States v. Woerner, 709 F.3d 527, 533 (5th Cir. 2013). Given the crime at issue—and the type of evidence needed to prove that crime—a reasonable officer could believe that examining the contents of the devices would not exceed the scope of, or probable cause underlying, the search warrant and was the only way to obtain evidence of Aleman’s criminal conduct and effectuate the warrant. See Leon, 468 U.S. at 922 n.23, 104 S.Ct. 3405. Moreover, the description in the warrant of the property being sought—i.e., devices capable of storing electronic data and the materials necessary to access and to view that data— supported that the objective of the warrant was to review the electronic media. The warrant especially authorized officers to remove and take any evidence seized pursuant to the warrant to any location needed for purposes of “completing] [] any investigation or proceeding related to the activities” described in the affidavit; that instruction reasonably would permit a search of the devices to ascertain whether they contained the recordings at issue. Further, the circumstances surrounding the execution of the warrant support that officers were objectively reasonable in relying upon it. See Woerner, 709 F.3d at 533. Accordingly, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies, and no further analysis is required. See Allen, 625 F.3d at 834.

Aleman contends that, because the initial warrant was invalid, two later obtained warrants—which uncovered, inter aha, images of child pornography—also were invalid. Because, as detailed, the good-faith exception applies as to the execution of the first warrant, and the evidence collected pursuant to that warrant was validly obtained, Aleman’s “fruit of the poisonous tree” claim is unavailing. See United States v. Payne, 341 F.3d 393, 399-402 (5th Cir. 2003).

Further, Aleman contests his sentence. Generally, we review a district court’s sentencing decision for reasonableness, under the abuse-of-discretion standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 50-51, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007). To the extent that Aleman seeks to challenge his sentence on grounds different from those raised in the district court, those claims would be subject to plain error review. See United States v. Peltier, 505 F.3d 389, 391-92 (5th Cir. 2007). Nevertheless, because Aleman cannot establish that the district court committed error, plain or otherwise, we need not resolve the standard of review. See United States v. Rodriguez, 523 F.3d 519, 525 (5th Cir. 2008).

He maintains that the district court procedurally erred by misapplying U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2(d) and sentencing him to consecutive terms of 360 months of imprisonment; he argues that, under § 5G1.2, the district court could order the sentences to run consecutively only to the extent needed to reach the high-end of the advisory guidelines range, i.e., 405 months of imprisonment in this case. However, Ale-man’s claim relies upon a false premise: the district court did not impose a Guidelines-based sentence under § 5G1.2(d), but instead found that an upward variance was warranted. Section § 5G1.2 does not limit the district court’s discretion to vary upwardly from the guidelines range based upon the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors and impose consecutive sentences. See 18 U.S.C. § 3584; United States v. Conlan, 786 F.3d 380, 394-95 & n.46 (5th Cir. *444 2015); United States v. Saldana, 427 F.3d 298, 308-09 n.41 (5th Cir. 2005).

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Related

Daniel H. Aleman, II v. State
Court of Appeals of Texas, 2018
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687 F. App'x 366 (Fifth Circuit, 2017)

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Bluebook (online)
675 F. App'x 441, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-daniel-aleman-ii-ca5-2017.