United States v. Hao Sun

354 F. App'x 295
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedNovember 25, 2009
Docket09-8002
StatusUnpublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 354 F. App'x 295 (United States v. Hao Sun) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth 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. Hao Sun, 354 F. App'x 295 (10th Cir. 2009).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

WADE BRORBY, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Appellant Hao Sun of possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(A), and he received a sentence of “time served plus three days,” after which he was to be deported. On appeal, Mr. Sun contends *297 the district court erred in denying his motion to admit hearsay testimony pursuant to Federal Rules of Evidence 804(a)(5), 804(b)(3), and 807. We exercise jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm the district court’s denial of admission of Mr. Sun’s hearsay evidence and affirm his conviction.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

On June 18, 2007, United States Park Rangers Eric Amundson and Shane Lawson investigated a claim by Edward Houston, a government employee living at the Bitterroot Dormitory located in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. 1 Mr. Houston told them he found pornographic images of children on the computer he borrowed from his roommate, Mr. Sun, a Chinese citizen and Hong Kong university student who entered the country on June 4, 2007, and was employed at Yellowstone National Park for the summer. Mr. Houston advised them the Toshiba Portege laptop in his possession, and belonging to Mr. Sun, contained images of young children photographed partially nude and committing sexual acts. He then located and displayed for the rangers approximately twenty-five to thirty images of young females, both partially and fully nude, on Mr. Sun’s computer, including two images depicting one young girl approximately four- to six-years-old, with fully-exposed genitalia and another young girl approximately six- to eight-year-sold involved in an oral sexual act. Mr. Houston then informed the rangers he believed the computer contained approximately 300 images on the hard drive and explained he found the images by clicking on an icon on the monitor.

The rangers then proceeded to Mr. Sun’s dorm room to conduct a field interview with him. When Mr. Sun greeted the rangers at his door, he immediately stated *298 he was “not into children.” After receiving advisement of his Miranda rights and stating he understood them, Mr. Sun agreed to answer questions. At that time, he admitted the computer in question belonged to him but denied ownership of the nude images of children. Instead, he stated he first noticed the nude images on his computer at the end of May or in early June, but he had “forgotten to delete them and didn’t know why.” When asked how he stored the computer, he explained it sat out in his dormitory room and his door was “always unlocked.” He then stated that “someone else” must have downloaded the material onto his computer.

During his interview, Mr. Sun became more nervous and concerned about possible charges being filed against him. He then asked if possessing pornography was illegal in the United States. When he was told it generally was not, but that possessing child pornography was illegal, he acted surprised and asked if the rangers were referring to child pornography found on his computer. When they verified they were, Mr. Sun again acted surprised and stated all of the pornography he viewed on his computer was “legal product” and that while he had downloaded nude adult images and videos from various web-sites, he could not recall how many or their names. The rangers left, informing Mr. Sun he would, most likely, be contacted again concerning their investigation. His computer was seized at that time.

Thereafter, the government obtained a federal search warrant for Mr. Sun’s computer and sent it to a forensics examiner, Special Agent Beth Shott, who conducted an examination of the computer. Ms. Shott later testified at Mr. Sun’s trial. According to her findings, one-half of the images on his computer contained pornography and one-quarter of those images contained child pornography, which included approximately 800 sexually-explicit images of children in various positions, including lascivious and graphic displays of genitals and adult/child sexual conduct. These images, as well as the adult pornography images, were contained in a single folder called “downloads,” and the child pornography images appeared in a sub-folder named “UU,” which in Chinese means “young young”; included in the “UU” sub-folder were nine sub-files containing the 800 child pornography images. Ms. Shott found most of the folders and sub-folders or sub-files on Mr. Sun’s computer were in English, including the child pornography sub-files.

Ms. Shott’s investigation revealed someone placed both the child and adult pornography images on the computer on May 26, 2007, prior to Mr. Sun’s arrival in the United States on June 4, 2007. However, at least twenty of the sexually-explicit images of children had file access dates in June 2007, including June 5, 9, 10, and 14, indicating someone viewed them during Mr. Sun’s employment at Yellowstone National Park. Many of these access dates corresponded with the same day someone accessed Mr. Sun’s school, family, and other photograph folders and conducted internet surfing to various web-sites, including sites for Mr. Sun’s college and bank. In determining the access dates, Ms. Shott omitted from consideration the dates Mr. Houston and the rangers accessed the computer and the images viewed.

In addition to the images and folders described, Ms. Shott also recovered a picture-viewing program on Mr. Sun’s computer which contained 2,000 indecent images of children and which was placed on his computer on June 4, 2007. She also determined that on June 3, 2007, someone used Mr. Sun’s computer to view sex sites and downloaded the images onto the computer, including at least one image of child *299 pornography. The only history Ms. Shott was able to recover from the computer was from May 20 to June 18, 2007; she stated this and the massive downloading of numerous amounts of school and family photos in late May, as well as other materials, including the adult and child pornography, were consistent with someone reloading their computer after damage and repair. She also stated someone catalogued the location of the child pornography material in the same manner as all of the other folders, including those of Mr. Sun’s family photographs and adult pornography. In her opinion, this, and the fact that someone added to those files while the computer was in the United States, indicated Mr. Sun knew of the existence of the child pornography on his computer.

Prior to trial, Mr. Sun filed a motion to admit hearsay statements of his cousin and father for the purpose of showing his cousin possessed his computer and placed the child pornography images on his computer. He also attached a written statement from his cousin, Sun Liutao, who lives in China. In his statement, his cousin admitted he downloaded “porn pictures” onto Mr.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. Oyegoke-Eniola
595 F. App'x 784 (Tenth Circuit, 2014)
United States v. James Smith
739 F.3d 843 (Fifth Circuit, 2014)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
354 F. App'x 295, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-hao-sun-ca10-2009.