United States v. David Gentles

672 F. App'x 609
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedDecember 6, 2016
Docket15-2845
StatusUnpublished

This text of 672 F. App'x 609 (United States v. David Gentles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth 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. David Gentles, 672 F. App'x 609 (8th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

David Lee Gentles was convicted of receiving child pornography, using the Internet to distribute child pornography, and using the Internet to knowingly attempt to transfer obscene matter to a minor. He appeals from the district court’s 1 denial of his motion to suppress evidence. We affirm.

In May 2012, an officer with the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force relayed the following information to Captain David Sutton of the Poplar Bluff Police Department. A federal agent had posed as á twelve-year-old girl and chatted with an adult male who had used the screen name “hellosweetdarlin.” During the chat, hellosweetdarlin provided instructions on how to masturbate and said that he had taught his fourteen-year-old daughter how to masturbate. Sutton received a copy of the chat communication, a video of an adult male masturbating that was sent during the chat, a copy of the administrative subpoena sent to the Internet service provider for information related to the Internet Protocol (IP) address associated with hellosweetdarlin, and the Internet service provider’s response that David Gentles was the subscriber of the IP address associated with hellosweetdarlin. The Internet service provider identified the following two addresses associated with Gentles’s account: P.O. Box 38, Mill Spring, Missouri; and Route 3, Box 7292, Hwy 495, Looper, Missouri.

Captain Sutton went to the Wayne County Sheriffs Department, where he spoke with Sergeant Woody Massa. Massa told Sutton that he was familiar with Gentles and that Gentles lived at 103 5th Street in Mill Spring. The officers also searched the Missouri Law Enforcement System, which confirmed that Gentles’s address was 103 5th Street. Massa brought Sutton to Gentles’s house, where the officers knocked on the door but received no answer. The officers observed a vehicle parked in the driveway and later determined that Gentles owned the vehicle.

Thereafter, Sutton prepared an Affidavit/Application for Search Warrant (application). The application sought to search “[t]he residence of David Gentles, described as a white sided, single story, wood frame building located at 103 5th Street in Mill Springt,] Missouri; any vehicles and buildings found at that locations [sic]; and any computers and/or electronic media and storage devices found therein.” The application set forth the details of the chat between the federal agent and the suspect and attached screen captures of the chat, including an image of the suspect masturbating. The application also stated that records from the Internet service provider “identified David Gentles in Mill Springf,] Missouri as the Internet service account holder.” The application did not list the two addresses associated with account, however. After Sutton prepared the application, it was reviewed and signed by a Wayne County prosecutor, who forwarded it to a judge, who then issued a search warrant. The search revealed evidence of the offenses set forth above.

Gentles moved to suppress the evidence, arguing, as relevant to this appeal, that the application failed to establish probable cause because “[n]o facts [were] alleged in *611 the application to support the claim that the building at 103 5th Street, Mill Spring, Missouri, [was] the residence of David Gentles.” During the suppression hearing, Captain Sutton testified that he focused the investigation on the residence located at 103 5th Street after Sergeant Massa told him where Gentles lived and that “[i]t had not occurred to [him] to include all the addresses that had come up in the investigation.” Sutton also testified that it was his practice to explain how he came to know a suspect’s address, and he described his failure to do so in this instance as “an oversight.” The district court denied the motion to suppress, adopting the magistrate judge’s recommendation that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary-rule should apply.

Gentles argues that the district court should have granted his motion to suppress evidence because the application failed to establish probable cause to search the residence located at 103 5th Street in Mill Spring. The Fourth Amendment requires a showing of probable cause before a search warrant may be issued. “Probable cause exists when the affidavit sets forth sufficient facts to lead a prudent person to believe that there is a ‘fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.’ ” United States v. Warford, 439 F.3d 836, 841 (8th Cir. 2006) (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983)). In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we review the district court’s factual determinations for clear error and its legal determinations de novo. I&

As an initial matter, we conclude that the application established probable cause to search Gentles’s home, even if it did not establish probable cause to search a particular address. The application described the illicit information exchanged during the online chat between a federal agent and an adult male. Attached to the application were screen captures of the chat, including an image of an adult male masturbating. Moreover, the application explained that records obtained from the Internet provider identified Gentles as the Internet service account holder. From this information, the issuing judge could reasonably infer that the federal agent subpoenaed information related to the suspect’s IP address and that Gentles, as the account holder, probably was the adult male engaged in the unlawful online activity described in the application. Because the items listed in the search warrant— computers, webcams, and other electronic media and storage devices—generally are kept in one’s home, it follows that probable cause existed to search Gentles’s home. See United States v. Cowling, 648 F.3d 690, 696 (8th Cir. 2011) (holding that probable cause existed to search the defendant’s residence because the warrant affidavit established probable cause that the defendant possessed stolen firearms and because people generally keep firearms at home or on their persons); United States v. McArthur, 573 F.3d 608, 613-14 (8th Cir. 2009) (“The observation that images of child pornography are likely to be hoarded by persons interested in those materials in the privacy of their homes is supported by common sense and the cases.” (alteration omitted) (quoting United States v. Riccardi, 405 F.3d 852, 861 (10th Cir. 2005))).

Gentles argues that the application did not set forth any “evidentiary support ... that anything illegal would be found at 103 5th Street, Mill Spring, Missouri.” Assuming without deciding that the application was insufficient to establish probable cause to search that particular address, we hold that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies in this case. See Warford, 439 F.3d at 841 (“In reviewing a *612

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Related

Franks v. Delaware
438 U.S. 154 (Supreme Court, 1978)
Illinois v. Gates
462 U.S. 213 (Supreme Court, 1983)
United States v. Leon
468 U.S. 897 (Supreme Court, 1984)
United States v. Riccardi
405 F.3d 852 (Tenth Circuit, 2005)
United States v. Cowling
648 F.3d 690 (Eighth Circuit, 2011)
United States v. Gerald Grant
490 F.3d 627 (Eighth Circuit, 2007)
United States v. McArthur
573 F.3d 608 (Eighth Circuit, 2009)

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Bluebook (online)
672 F. App'x 609, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-david-gentles-ca8-2016.