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

(a)(2) and

possession of child pornography in violation of

(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

(a)(2), (b), and possession of child pornography, see

§ 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,

(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

(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,

(1st Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Fagan,

(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,

(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,

(1st

Cir. 2000) (quoting United States v. Bonner,

(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,

(1st Cir. 2007) (quoting United States v. Pérez,

(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,

(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."

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.,

; United States

v. Hinds,

(1st Cir. 1988); United States v.

Ferreras,

(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,

(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,

(8th Cir. 1990); Hinds,

; see also United States v. Werra,

(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,

.

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

(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."

; 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,

(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,

, 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,

(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,

, 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,

(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."

.

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."

. Nor is the affidavit supporting the warrant "so lacking in

indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its

existence entirely unreasonable."

(quoting Brown v. Illinois,

(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,

(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,

(1st Cir. 2020)

(quoting United States v. Simmons,

(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 -