United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
No. 24-1009
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
JAMES WARD JACKSON,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. William E. Smith, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Kayatta, Selya, and Aframe, Circuit Judges.
John L. Calcagni III, with whom Law Office of John L. Calcagni III, Inc. was on brief, for appellant. Julie M. White, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Lauren S. Zurier, Assistant United States Attorney, and Zachary A. Cunha, United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee.
September 30, 2024 SELYA, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant James Ward
Jackson, a priest, resided in the rectory of St. Mary's Catholic
Church in Providence, Rhode Island. The rectory stood on the
church's grounds. After obtaining a warrant to search the rectory,
the government seized the appellant's laptop and external hard
drive. A forensic examination revealed over 12,000 images and
1,300 videos depicting child pornography on the appellant's
laptop.
In due season, a federal grand jury sitting in the
District of Rhode Island charged the appellant with receipt of
child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2) and
possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 2252(a)(4)(B). After some procedural skirmishing, not relevant
here, the appellant entered a conditional guilty plea, see Fed. R.
Crim. P. 11(a)(2), reserving only his "right to have [this court]
review . . . the [d]istrict [c]ourt's denial of [his m]otion to
[s]uppress." According to his plea agreement, the appellant
understood that, on appeal, he would only be able to "raise the
specific suppression issues addressed in the [d]istrict [c]ourt
order" denying his motion to suppress.
In this appeal, we first consider whether the warrant
was sufficiently particular as to the premises to be searched and
the property to be seized. We then consider whether the officers
executing the search relied on the warrant in good faith.
- 2 - Concluding, as we do, that — regardless of whether the warrant was
sufficiently particular — the officers reasonably relied on the
warrant when executing their search, we affirm the judgment below.
I
We briefly rehearse the relevant facts as presented by
the record and then proceed to chronicle the travel of the case.
We start with the affidavit on which the challenged warrant rests.
According to that affidavit, on September 4, 2021, Detective
Corporal Stephen Evans, a member of the East Providence Police
Department assigned to the Rhode Island Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Force (the Task Force), observed a device using a
specific IP address on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network sharing
and downloading files of child pornography. Throughout September
and October of 2021, Detective Evans observed that a device
connected to this same IP address visited a peer-to-peer
file-sharing network on three additional occasions. On one of
these occasions, the device interacted with nine more files of
child pornography.
Through an investigation which included an inquiry
directed to the American Registry of Internet Numbers, Detective
Evans determined that the subscriber of the IP address was the
bookkeeper for St. Mary's Church in Providence, Rhode Island.
According to Detective Evans, bookkeepers are commonly listed as
- 3 - subscribers for commercial properties because they are responsible
for bill payment.
In October of 2021, Detective Evans visited the
neighborhood in which St. Mary's Church was located. He discovered
that the building was a stone church with a "St. Mary's Catholic
Parish" sign in front of it. Detective Evans also saw a yellow
building next to the church, with a "Church of St. Mary" sign in
front of it. This building housed the church's offices and
rectory.
While standing close to the church, Detective Evans
checked publicly available Wi-Fi signals and located a network
titled "St. Mary's Church _Ext." He also learned that this Wi-Fi
signal was password-protected.
Based on his observations, Detective Evans applied for
and received a Rhode Island state search warrant. The warrant was
issued by a state-court judge on October 21, 2021. It identified
the place to be searched as:
The premises located at 538 Broadway, Providence, Rhode Island 02909. Said premises is [sic] described as a stone church with "St. Mary's Catholic Parish" affixed to a sign in the front of the building. The search will include exterior buildings on the property to include the detached yellow building commonly known as the rectory. The search will include storage spaces located on the premises used by residents.
- 4 - The warrant identified the property to be searched for and seized
as:
Computer hardware, computer software, mobile devices, and portable digital storage devices, to include the contents therein. Additionally, any and all computer-related documentation, records, documents, material, proceeds, and passwords or other data security devices related to the possession and transfer of child pornography.
Detective Evans and other members of the Task Force
executed the search warrant on October 30, 2021, seizing the
appellant's laptop and an external hard drive from the appellant's
office area in the rectory. According to the government, a
subsequent forensic examination of the laptop's hard drive
revealed over 12,000 images and 1,300 videos depicting child
pornography.1 The appellant's arrest followed.
A federal grand jury proceeded to indict the appellant
on charges of receipt of child pornography, see 18 U.S.C.
§ 2252(a)(2), (b), and possession of child pornography, see id.
§ 2252(a)(4)(B), (b)(2). The appellant moved to suppress the
evidence obtained in the search. On November 14, 2022, the
district court denied the appellant's motion. The court could not
"conclusively determine[]" whether the rectory was a single-family
residence or a multi-unit dwelling. United States v. Jackson, 642
The appellant has not contested the accuracy of these 1
figures.
- 5 - F. Supp. 3d 235, 241 (D.R.I. 2022). Even so, the court found that
because the rectory appeared to lack the hallmarks typical of
multi-unit dwellings (such as separate entrances, separate
doorbells, separate mailboxes, and independent living space), it
was "best characterized as a single-family residence." Id. With
this reasoning in place, the court held that the warrant's
description was sufficiently particular both as to the property to
be searched and the things to be seized. Id. at 239-41. As a
fallback, the court added that even if the warrant lacked
sufficient particularity, the good-faith exception to the
exclusionary rule would apply. Id. at 242; see, e.g., United
States v. Coombs, 857 F.3d 439, 446-48 (1st Cir. 2017) (explaining
that suppression is inappropriate when officers exhibited good
faith and affirming denial of motions to suppress when officers'
good faith was manifest).
Some three months later, the appellant moved for
reconsideration of the district court's order denying his motion
to suppress. The appellant argued that additional facts proved
that the rectory was best characterized as a multi-unit dwelling2
and that the warrant was therefore insufficiently particular. The
These additional facts included affidavits of two priests 2
affiliated with St. Mary's Church, describing the physical properties of the church and rectory; photographs of the interior and exterior of the rectory; and the St. Mary's Church bulletin, listing multiple church leaders.
- 6 - district court denied this motion, reiterating that even if the
rectory was a multi-unit dwelling, the warrant was not so facially
deficient that the executing officers could not reasonably presume
it to be valid, thus defenestrating any basis for suppression.
The appellant subsequently entered a conditional guilty
plea to one count of receipt of child pornography, see 18 U.S.C.
§ 2252(a)(2), and the government dismissed the charge of
possession of child pornography. The conditional plea provided
that under Rule 11(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal
Procedure, the appellant reserved his right to appeal the district
court's November 14, 2022 order denying his motion to suppress.
Moreover, it confirmed that the appellant understood that he would
not be allowed to raise any other claims on appeal — only the
specific suppression issues addressed in the designated order.
On December 13, 2023, the district court sentenced the
appellant to serve a seventy-two month term of immurement. This
appeal followed.
II
A
"In reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to
suppress, 'we assess factual findings for clear error and evaluate
legal rulings de novo.'" United States v. Garcia-Hernandez, 659
F.3d 108, 111 (1st Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Fagan, 577
F.3d 10, 12 (1st Cir. 2009)). This review is highly deferential.
- 7 - "If any reasonable view of the evidence supports the denial of a
motion to suppress, we will affirm the denial." United States v.
Boskic, 545 F.3d 69, 77 (1st Cir. 2008).
The Fourth Amendment declares that no search warrant
shall issue unless it "particularly describ[es] the place to be
searched, and the . . . things to be seized." U.S. Const. amend.
IV. "[T]he test for determining the adequacy of the description
of the location to be searched is whether the description is
sufficient to enable the executing officer to locate and identify
the premises with reasonable effort, and whether there is any
reasonable probability that another premise might be mistakenly
searched." United States v. Vega-Figueroa, 234 F.3d 744, 756 (1st
Cir. 2000) (quoting United States v. Bonner, 808 F.2d 864, 866-67
(1st Cir. 1986)). Although "the particularity requirement
obligates the police to 'specify the precise unit that is the
subject of the search,' and 'the general rule is that a warrant
that authorizes the search of an undisclosed multi-unit dwelling
is invalid,'" the police may lawfully search a multi-unit
dwelling — even if the warrant was only for a single-unit
dwelling — provided that the police reasonably believed that the
dwelling contained only one unit. United States v. Mousli, 511
F.3d 7, 12 (1st Cir. 2007) (quoting United States v. Pérez, 484
F.3d 735, 741 (5th Cir. 2007)). And "a warrant for a single-unit
residence authorizes the search of that entire dwelling regardless
- 8 - of who the area being searched belongs to, so long as the items
delineated in the warrant could reasonably be found in the searched
area." United States v. McLellan, 792 F.3d 200, 212 (1st Cir.
2015).
This case is not entirely unique: courts previously
have been asked to distinguish a dwelling as either a single- or
multi-unit residence in the context of Fourth Amendment claims
arising out of the execution of a warrant. "Whether a dwelling
constitutes a single- or multi-unit residence is a fact-intensive
and situation-specific determination, and thus there are no
hard-and-fast rules as to what category any particular dwelling
falls into." Id. Instead, when considering the issue, courts are
guided by observable factors which indicate whether a dwelling is
a single- or multi-unit residence, such as whether the residence
has individual units, independent entrances, or separate living
spaces within the dwelling. See, e.g., id. at 213; United States
v. Hinds, 856 F.2d 438, 441-42 (1st Cir. 1988); United States v.
Ferreras, 192 F.3d 5, 10-11 (1st Cir. 1999). Courts also consider
that the validity of a warrant is assessed based on the information
the police disclosed, or had the duty to discover and disclose, to
the judge issuing the warrant. See Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S.
79, 85 (1987).
In the case at hand, the appellant argues that the
warrant lacked sufficient particularity as to the place to be
- 9 - searched because it did not specify an individual suspect or
residence within the rectory to be searched, notwithstanding the
warrant's acknowledgement and the executing officers' knowledge as
a result of the search that more than one resident lived in the
rectory. Given these facts, the appellant further argues that the
warrant amounted to a warrant to search multiple residences.
The district court found that the rectory is "best
characterized as a single-family residence," although it qualified
its finding by noting that this distinction could not "be
conclusively determined based on the available information."
Jackson, 642 F. Supp. 3d at 241. As the court observed, the
warrant was premised upon externally observable indicia that the
rectory was a single-unit dwelling, including the fact that the
property did not have separate or independent entrances,
doorbells, or mailboxes. See id. What is more, the property
contained common, as opposed to separate, living spaces. See id.
In our view, these considerations reasonably differentiate single-
unit dwellings from multi-unit dwellings. See, e.g., United States
v. Williams, 917 F.2d 1088, 1091 (8th Cir. 1990); Hinds, 856 F.2d
at 441-42; see also United States v. Werra, 638 F.3d 326, 334-36
(1st Cir. 2011) (considering, among other factors, shared use of
house and common areas as a whole in determining whether occupant
of non-traditional house had reasonable expectation of privacy in
entire house). The evidence that Detective Evans disclosed and
- 10 - should have disclosed to the issuing judge indicates that the
rectory was properly characterized as a single-unit dwelling. See
Garrison, 480 U.S. at 85.
To be sure, the warrant acknowledged, and the executing
officers' search confirmed, that more than one resident lived in
the rectory. But this fact alone does not negate the validity of
the warrant. See Hinds 856 F.2d at 441-42 (finding that "the mere
presence of more than one family in a building [does not]
automatically change[] its character from single family to
multifamily"). And during their search, the executing officers
were bound to have observed that the rectory largely lacked indicia
of a multi-unit dwelling, such as separate living spaces.
The appellant's generalized desire that the police
incorporate his "alternative solutions" toward identifying
criminals in their investigations is a largely inappropriate
consideration when determining whether the warrant in this case
was sufficiently particular.3 We conclude, therefore, that on the
whole, the property to be searched, "was described as accurately
as could be reasonably expected." Id. at 442; see McLellan, 792
3 The appellant suggests a range of alternative solutions, such as requiring the government to seize an internet router (prior to seizing an individual's computer) in order to determine the exact device connected to the IP address at the time of the suspected illegal activity. The appellant also proposes that the government should install software on an internet server that discloses a computer's address when the computer downloads pornography from a certain provider.
- 11 - F.3d at 212; see also Bonner, 808 F.2d at 868 (reasoning that
search warrants should be considered in commonsense manner and
hyper-technical readings should be avoided).
Turning to the particularity of the items to be seized,
the appellant argues that because the warrant listed numerous items
of evidence with no regard for the owner of the device or the
existence of probable cause for each individual item, the warrant
was insufficiently particular. To be clear, the warrant procured
here was limited to "[c]omputer hardware, computer software,
mobile devices, and portable digital storage devices, to include
the contents therein" and additional computer-associated items
specifically "related to the possession and transfer of child
pornography." In the context of our ever-increasing use of
technology, the appellant's plaint that the warrant did not limit
the items to be seized to those items that the police — while
conducting the search — could not reasonably exclude as the source
of the file-sharing that gave rise to the warrant is not without
some force. Absent such a limitation, it is possible that the
warrant could lead officers to seize an innocent resident's
devices. Taking into account the current climate in which
individuals increasingly maintain personal data on their
electronic devices, warrant applicants, as well as residents,
might benefit from protective protocols that minimize intrusion or
encourage investigation into specific electronic devices. Cf.
- 12 - United States v. Rivera-Morales, 961 F.3d 1, 13–14 (1st Cir. 2020)
(discussing potential limitations of, and caution necessary when,
applying private-search doctrine to cell phones and other digital
devices).
But our analysis of the particularity of the items to be
seized must also consider the nature of the computer-based child
pornography charges lodged against the appellant. See United
States v. Upham, 168 F.3d 532, 535 (1st Cir. 1999) (holding warrant
that permitted seizure of items including "[a]ny and all computer
software and hardware" valid in child pornography case); see also
United States v. Corleto, 56 F.4th 169, 176–77 (1st Cir. 2022)
(upholding — given evidence in affidavit of defendant's sexual
exploitation of minor and transportation of child pornography —
warrant permitting seizure of wide range of electronic devices).
Given these competing considerations and the availability of the
good-faith exception, we need not definitively determine whether
the district court acted reasonably in finding that the warrant
described the items to be seized with sufficient particularity.
B
Even were we to find that the warrant was not
sufficiently particular as to either the place to be searched or
property to be seized, the district court's denial of the
appellant's motion to suppress would still survive scrutiny under
what is commonly known as the good-faith exception to the
- 13 - exclusionary rule. Cf. United States v. Gonzalez, __ F.4th __, __
(1st Cir. 2024) [No. 24-1070, slip op. at 13-14] (collecting cases
approving bypass of Fourth Amendment inquiries and proceeding
directly to good-faith analysis).
Under the good-faith exception, when officers
"objectively reasonabl[y] rel[y] on a subsequently invalidated
search warrant," then "the marginal or nonexistent benefits
produced by suppressing evidence obtained in" these circumstances
"cannot justify the substantial costs of exclusion." United States
v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922 (1984). "This is particularly
true . . . when an officer acting with objective good faith has
obtained a search warrant from a judge or magistrate and acted
within its scope." Id. at 920.
Contrary to the appellant's importunings, we agree with
the district court that the warrant was not so "facially
deficient . . . in failing to particularize the place to be
searched or the things to be seized . . . that the executing
officers [could not] reasonably presume it to be valid." Id. at
923. Nor is the affidavit supporting the warrant "so lacking in
indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its
existence entirely unreasonable." Id. (quoting Brown v. Illinois,
422 U.S. 590, 610-11 (1975)).
We need not tarry. Detective Evans' affidavit describes
his multiple observations over a two-month time span of a device
- 14 - using a specific IP address on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network
sharing and downloading files of child pornography. The affidavit
includes descriptions of many of these files which fit the
definition of child pornography. The affidavit further describes
Detective Evans' investigation into the ownership of the IP
address, how he determined that the owner was affiliated with St.
Mary's Church, and his visit to the church grounds (including the
rectory). So, too, the affidavit explains that individuals seeking
to obtain and share child pornography often use file-sharing
programs, such as the peer-to-peer network employed here. Far
from a barebones proffer, Detective Evans' thorough and detailed
affidavit provided a sound basis for a reasonable officer to infer
that an individual was using a device to share and download child
pornography, in violation of the law, either at St. Mary's Church
or its adjoining rectory. See id. at 926. Because it was
objectively reasonable for the officers conducting the search of
the rectory and the seizure of the appellant's laptop and hard
drive to rely on the warrant, the motion to suppress was
appropriately denied under the good-faith exception. See
Gonzalez, __ F.4th at __ [No. 24-1070, slip op. at 19-25].
C
The appellant dedicates a portion of his brief to the
proposition that if a warrant to search a rectory required a lesser
standard of particularity or probable cause than a warrant to
- 15 - search a different dwelling, this would impact individuals' First
Amendment rights (such as freedom of assembly). But — as the
appellant implicitly acknowledges throughout his argument — we
consider the appellant's contentions regarding the warrant's
particularity under the same Fourth Amendment particularity
standard as any other warrant. Consequently, the appellant's First
Amendment argument gains him no ground.
D
We turn last to the appellant's attempt to extend this
appeal to the denial of his motion for reconsideration. The
government contends that the appellant failed to reserve his right
to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to reconsider
and, therefore, we should neither review that ruling nor consider
the additional arguments submitted in support of it. The appellant
rejoins that he reserved his right to appeal the issues raised in
his motion to suppress and that those issues are essentially the
same as those raised by his later motion to reconsider. Thus —
his thesis runs — by reserving his right to challenge the denial
of his motion to suppress, he also reserved his right to challenge
the denial of his motion to reconsider. We do not agree.
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2) allows a
defendant who enters a conditional guilty plea to "reserv[e] in
writing the right to have an appellate court review an adverse
determination of a specified pretrial motion." This rule "is
- 16 - designed to 'ensure careful attention to any conditional plea,' to
'identify precisely what pretrial issues have been preserved for
appellate review,' and to husband scarce judicial resources by
permitting a defendant fully to litigate hoarded issues while at
the same time lessening the burden on busy district courts and
sparing the sovereign the expense of trial." United States v.
Caraballo-Cruz, 52 F.3d 390, 392 (1st Cir. 1995) (quoting Fed. R.
Crim. P. 11 advisory committee's note to 1983 amendment).
Rule 11(a)(2) says what it means and means what it says.
Seen in this light, "[i]t is a commonsense proposition that
defendants who choose to enter conditional guilty pleas must 'use
care and precision in framing the issues to be preserved for
appeal.'" United States v. Adams, 971 F.3d 22, 31 (1st Cir. 2020)
(quoting United States v. Simmons, 763 F.2d 529, 533 (2d Cir.
1985)). "Virtually any and all nonjurisdictional issues not
explicitly preserved for appeal in the conditional plea agreement
— and certainly all Fourth Amendment suppression issues — are
deemed waived." Id. at 30 (collecting cases).
As part of his conditional plea agreement under Rule
11(a)(2), the appellant reserved his right to appeal the district
court's denial of his motion to suppress — no more and no less.
The appellant did not reserve his right to appeal the district
- 17 - court's denial of his motion for reconsideration.4 Under these
circumstances, the appellant has waived his right to seek appellate
review of the district court's denial of his motion for
reconsideration.5
III
We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above,
the judgment of the district court is
Affirmed.
4 The appellant's plea agreement reads, in relevant part:
Under subsection (a)(2) of Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Defendant reserves the right to have the [c]ourt of [a]ppeals review: (1) the [d]istrict [c]ourt's denial of Defendant's Motion to Suppress . . ., which denial is set forth in its entirety in the [c]ourt's November 14, 2022 Memorandum and Order . . . The United States consents to this limited reservation of appellate rights by Defendant under Rule ll(a)(2). Defendant understands that he will not be allowed to raise other suppression claims on appeal, and that he may only raise the specific suppression issues addressed in the [d]istrict [c]ourt order.
5 We note that even if we were to consider the appellant's arguments based on his motion to reconsider, our decision would be unchanged.
- 18 -