United States v. Luken

560 F.3d 741, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 7162, 2009 WL 875033
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedApril 3, 2009
Docket08-1088
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 560 F.3d 741 (United States v. Luken) 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. Luken, 560 F.3d 741, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 7162, 2009 WL 875033 (8th Cir. 2009).

Opinion

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

Jonathan Luken conditionally pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B). Pursuant to his plea agreement, Luken appeals the district court’s 1 order denying his motion to suppress. Luken also claims the district court erred in sentencing him to five years’ supervised release. We affirm the conviction and sentence.

I.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) investigation revealed that two credit card numbers believed to be Luken’s were used in 2002 and 2003 to purchase child pornography from a website in Belarus. On July 25, 2006, three law-enforcement officers visited Luken at his place of employment. One of the officers, Agent Troy Boone of the South Dakota Department of Criminal Investigation, informed Luken that the officers believed Luken’s credit card had been used to purchase child pornography. Boone told Luken that the officers wanted to speak with Luken privately about the matter and look at his home computer. Luken agreed to speak with them at his home and drove himself to his house to meet them.

Upon arriving at Luken’s home, Luken allowed the officers to enter his house. Luken’s wife was home, so Boone offered to speak with Luken privately in Boone’s car. Luken agreed. Once inside the car, Boone informed Luken that Luken did not have to answer any questions, was not under arrest, and was free to leave. Luken nevertheless agreed to speak with Boone. Luken discussed the nature of his computer use and knowledge. He admitted to purchasing and downloading child pornography for several years. He also admitted to looking at child pornography within the previous month. He stated, however, that he believed he had no child pornography saved on his computer.

After Luken admitted to viewing child pornography, Boone asked Luken if offi *743 cers could examine Luken’s computer. Boone explained the nature of computer searches to Luken and told Luken that, even if files had been deleted, police often could recover them with special software. Boone asked Luken if a police search would reveal child pornography in Luken’s deleted files. Luken stated that there might be “nature shots” on his computer, i.e., pictures of naked children not in sexually explicit positions, that he recently viewed for free. Boone then asked Luken to consent to a police search of Luken’s computer, and Boone drafted a handwritten consent agreement stating, “On 7-25-06,1, Jon Luken, give law enforcement the permission to seize & view my Gateway computer.” Luken signed and dated the agreement.

After seizing Luken’s computer, Boone obtained a state search warrant to examine it. Boone testified that he sought a warrant because he feared Luken would revoke his consent. That warrant, which stated it was good for ten days, gave police permission to search the computer for “[c]ontraband, the fruits of crime, or things otherwise criminally possessed” and “[pjroperty designed or intended for use in, or which is or has been used as the means of committing a criminal offense.” Boone then removed the hard drive from Luken’s computer and sent it to a state laboratory for analysis. He then left the state for computer-forensics training.

When Boone returned to South Dakota in late August, he discovered the state crime lab was backlogged and had not yet analyzed Luken’s hard drive. At Boone’s request, the lab returned the hard drive to Boone and Boone used forensic software to analyze it. Boone discovered approximately 200 pictures he considered child pornography. After speaking with a federal prosecutor, Boone randomly selected 41 of those pictures for which to prosecute Luken. Based on those 41 pictures, a grand jury indicted Luken for possession of child pornography.

After Luken was charged and pleaded not guilty, Luken filed a motion to suppress the evidence that Boone had collected from Luken’s hard drive. A magistrate judge held a hearing on the matter and subsequently filed a report and recommendation that the motion be denied. Luken objected to the magistrate court’s findings and the district court held a second suppression hearing. Before the district court ruled, however, Luken conditionally agreed to plead guilty, reserving the right to appeal (1) the district court’s suppression decision and (2) any sentence the district court imposed above the advisory guideline range.

On August 21, 2007, the district court adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and denied Luken’s motion to suppress. As a result, on September 10, 2007, Luken appeared in a Rule 11 proceeding to enter his conditional guilty plea. During that proceeding, the district court relied on an incorrect statement in Luken’s plea agreement and told Luken that the maximum term of supervised release for his crime was only three years. Title 18, section 3583(k) of the United States Code provides that “the authorized term of supervised release ... for any offense under section ... 2252A ... is any term of years not less than 5, or life.” 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k).

After pleading guilty, Luken, claiming legal innocence, filed a motion to withdraw his plea. The district court denied Luken’s motion. Luken then filed multiple objections to the Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR”). Luken’s objections, however, did not challenge the PSR’s recommendation advising the court that the authorized term of supervised release was five years to life. On December 18, 2007, *744 the district court sentenced Luken to 18 months’ imprisonment and five years’ supervised release. Luken filed a timely notice of appeal.

II.

A.

Pursuant to his conditional plea, Luken first appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress. He argues that Boone’s computer search exceeded the scope of his voluntary consent, exceeded the scope of the search warrant, and was not timely executed. The government claims that the district court correctly found that Luken consented to the search, that the warrant authorized the search, and that the search was exercised in a reasonable time frame. “We review [the] district court’s factual conclusions for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo.” United States v. Guzmam-Tlaseca, 546 F.3d 571, 576 (8th Cir.2008).

“The Fourth Amendment protects individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.” United States v. Williams, 521 F.3d 902, 905 (8th Cir.2008). “Consensual searches do not violate the Fourth Amendment ‘because it is no doubt reasonable for the police to conduct a search once they have been permitted to do so.’ ” Id. at 906 (quoting Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 250-51, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 114 L.Ed.2d 297 (1991)).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
560 F.3d 741, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 7162, 2009 WL 875033, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-luken-ca8-2009.