United States v. Darrell Mark Babcock
Opinion
In this case, police officers investigating a domestic disturbance confiscated a suspect's cell phone and held it for two days before eventually obtaining a warrant to search it. The appeal before us presents two Fourth Amendment questions. First, was the seizure justified on the ground that the officers had reasonable suspicion to believe that the phone's owner was engaged in criminal wrongdoing-was it, in effect, a permissible " Terry stop" of the phone? We hold that it was not. Second, in the particular circumstances of this case, did the officers have probable cause to believe not only that the phone's owner had committed a crime and that the phone contained evidence of that crime, but also that the suspect would likely destroy that evidence before they could procure a warrant? We hold that they did. Accordingly, and on that ground, we affirm the district court's order denying the motion to suppress. We separately affirm the district court's sentence.
I
A
Early one Friday morning, Deputy Andrea Olson of the Stuart, Florida Police Department responded to a domestic-disturbance call reporting a ruckus coming from a camper parked at Darrell Babcock's *1185 residence-specifically, a female had been heard yelling, "Stop, stop, stop!" When Deputy Olson knocked on the door of Babcock's camper, Babcock exited, closed the door behind him, and volunteered that no one else was inside. Almost immediately, though, Deputy Olson heard a female announce that she was coming out. A teenage girl emerged from the trailer; she was wearing only yoga shorts and a camo jacket, and she had blood on her left thigh. Seemingly by way of explanation, Babcock handed Deputy Olson his cell phone to show her a video of the girl-we'll call her C.A.-sitting on a bed, holding a knife to her own throat and saying that she wanted to die. In the video Babcock could be heard berating the girl, telling her, "you're dumb as f***" and complaining, "this is what I deal with right here ... you gotta do drama and fighting me all over the place." After viewing the clip, Deputy Olson returned Babcock's phone. When backup arrived on the scene, Deputy Olson asked for the phone again so that she could show the video to her colleague, Officer Michael McMahan.
The officers then interviewed Babcock and C.A. separately. Babcock denied knowing C.A.'s age and also disputed that the two were in a relationship, although he admitted that he had known C.A. for three years and that she used to be his neighbor. He also said that C.A. had shown up at his camper unannounced, sometime during the middle of the night. C.A., by contrast-whose license showed that she was only 16 years old-stated that she and Babcock had gone together the night before to a Halloween party, where she had consumed alcohol, cocaine, and other substances. After answering a few questions, C.A. began either panicking or experiencing the effects of an overdose, so the officers called an ambulance. Deputy Olson rode with C.A. to the hospital.
Meanwhile, another officer, Detective Brian Broughton, remained behind to continue questioning Babcock. Detective Broughton sought and received permission to search Babcock's camper, where he discovered blood on the bedsheets and prescription pills scattered about. When Detective Broughton asked to further inspect Babcock's phone, Babcock refused and asked to have it back. Babcock offered to e-mail the video clip of C.A. with the knife, but Detective Broughton decided to keep the phone instead. He told Officer McMahan to enter it into evidence and then took it with him to the hospital to talk to C.A.
At the hospital, C.A. again insisted that she and Babcock were just friends, that they had gone to a Halloween party, and that the two had then argued. She firmly denied any further relationship. But when Detective Broughton informed C.A. that he had Babcock's phone, she abruptly reversed course and admitted that the two had been in a relationship and, further, that the officers would find sexually explicit images of her on the phone. Two days later, Detective Broughton applied for and obtained a warrant to search the phone, where he found nude images of C.A. and explicit video recordings of Babcock and C.A. together.
B
Babcock was charged with two counts of producing a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct with a minor in violation of
A magistrate judge recommended that Babcock's motion be denied. He concluded-referencing two distinct Fourth Amendment standards-that "the collective knowledge and information received by the officers at the scene constituted sufficient probable cause and reasonable suspicion that there may have been a crime committed which may have been preserved on the cell phone." The district court agreed, noting-also somewhat vaguely-that the surrounding circumstances were "sufficient for law enforcement to suspect inappropriate conduct between [Babcock] and C.A." Later, at sentencing, the district judge further remarked that although he "didn't say [it] in the order," he was "putting [it] on the record for appellate purposes" that in the video C.A. "appear[ed] to be either with no pants on or underwear" and that, based on "what she says and how she says it about what she wants to do to herself," it was "obvious ... that there was an inappropriate relationship going on which would have given [the officers] reasonable probable cause to believe that there was inappropriate sexual activity between" Babcock and C.A. Babcock took a plea, reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress.
At sentencing, Babcock asked for the mandatory minimum of 180 months, arguing that his conduct, while inappropriate, was outside the core child-pornography-distribution behavior that Congress sought to deter under § 2251(a) and (e). The government in turn asked for a sentence within the 360-to-720-month recommended Guidelines range, stressing the harm to C.A. and her family. The court imposed a below-Guidelines sentence of 324 months. Babcock appealed both the denial of his motion to suppress and his sentence.
II
We'll tackle the Fourth Amendment issues first. A person suffers a "seizure" of his property within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when there is a "meaningful interference" with his possessory interest in it.
United States v.Virden
,
Here, the government principally argues that these cases permitted the officers to detain Babcock's phone based on their reasonable suspicion that he had committed a crime. Alternatively, the government contends that the officers had probable cause to believe that the phone contained evidence of a crime and that exigent circumstances-namely, the need to prevent the destruction of that evidence-allowed them to seize the phone. We consider each argument in turn.
A
1
Reasonable suspicion is "a particularized and objective basis" for suspecting a person of criminal activity.
Ornelas v. United States
,
The Supreme Court first extended
Terry
's rationale from people to property in
United States v. Place
,
Shortly after the Supreme Court decided
Place
, this Court had occasion to apply it on similar facts. In
United States v. Puglisi
, an officer made what began as a brief stop by ordering a suspicious traveler's bags removed from a luggage cart; he then stowed the luggage in his office until a drug-sniffing dog became available.
*1188 We explained that " Place requires the same test as Terry : a court must weigh the intrusiveness of a limited seizure of the individual against society's interest in detection and prevention of crime." Id . at 785. We cautioned, however, that because the Fourth Amendment "protects people, not things," the focus was the effective "seizure of persons, through their luggage." Id . at 787-88.
Although
Place
and
Puglisi
concerned luggage, both this Court and others have since indicated that any detention of property based on reasonable suspicion must be fairly analogous to a
Terry
stop, regardless of the item at issue. Accordingly, we have said, "the factors used to determine whether a
Terry
stop has matured into an arrest are also useful in evaluating whether a seizure of property required probable cause" rather than mere reasonable suspicion.
Virden
,
First, duration. Although the Supreme Court has "decline[d] to adopt any outside time limit for a permissible
Terry
stop," the Court in
Place
observed that it had "never approved a seizure of the person for the prolonged 90-minute period involved" in that case and that, on the facts presented there, it wouldn't approve a 90-minute detention of property, either.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Fourth Circuit has approved a seconds-long cell-phone stop on the basis of reasonable suspicion alone. In
United States v. Lawing
, that court held that an officer's brief detention of a suspect's phone during a traffic stop-for just long enough to see if it would ring when the officer dialed a known drug-distributor's number-was sufficiently minimal to qualify for
Terry
/
Place
treatment.
Second, intrusiveness. The "intrusiveness" factor concerns the degree to which a property detention interferes with a person's possessory interest in his belongings. In
Place
, for instance, the Court emphasized that although "the particular course of investigation that the agents
intended
to pursue"-just a brief "exposure of respondent's luggage, which was located in a public place, to a trained canine"-would have been permissible based on
*1189
mere reasonable suspicion, the 90-minute seizure that they
actually
effected was not.
This Court has likewise recognized that individuals have strong interests in containers that hold personal effects or private information, such as luggage and computers. In
Puglisi
, we emphasized that "privacy and possessory interests in luggage are often high" because a traveler may have "his most important and private possessions in his suitcase" and likely wants "to shield them from the prying eyes of strangers, especially the government."
Third, diligence. When police diligently pursue their investigation, a reviewing court can have greater confidence that the governmental interest is legitimate and that the intrusion occasioned by the challenged detention was no greater than reasonably necessary.
See
United States v. Burgard
,
Finally, governmental interest. The final factor looks at the other side of the ledger. As the Court explained in
Place
, "[t]he exception to the probable-cause requirement for limited seizures of the person recognized in
Terry
and its progeny rests on a balancing of the competing interests to determine the reasonableness of the type of seizure."
2
How, then, do these considerations stack up in this case? In short, not well for the government. To begin at the end, we don't doubt for a moment the government's "compelling" interest in preventing the creation and distribution of child pornography.
E.g.
,
New York v. Ferber
,
Looking first to duration, the government cites
United States v. Brignoni-Ponce
,
What of the more analogous decisions in
Place
and
Puglisi
? The government seeks to distinguish them on the ground that both cases analyzed the seizure of luggage "as essentially a detention of the person." Br. of Appellant at 16 n.4. The government asserts that
Puglisi
, in particular, is inapt because the Court there held that "[f]or time even to be relevant, the seizure of luggage must have actually or constructively seized the person."
Two responses. For starters, we don't think that this one line, taken alone, represents the holding of
Puglisi
.
See
Dantzler v. I.R.S.
,
Furthermore-and more importantly-it's not clear why, under the rationale of
Place
and
Puglisi
, an officer's confiscation of a cell phone is any
less
a constructive seizure of its owner than his detention of luggage (which, per
Place
, would make even 90 minutes too long). In
Place
the Court reasoned that while a suspect whose luggage is detained is "technically still free
*1191
to continue his travels," the seizure might nonetheless "effectively restrain" him by disrupting his travel plans.
Next, the intrusion into Babcock's possessory interest in his private property was serious. For many of the reasons just explained, a person's possessory interest in his cell phone is at least as high as-if not higher than-his interest in his luggage. A smart phone, as the Supreme Court recently emphasized, is unique in both the breadth and depth of personal information it stores, including "photographs, picture messages, text messages, Internet browsing history, a calendar, a thousand-entry phone book"-information that, all told, "reveal[s] much more in combination than any isolated record."
Riley v. California
,
Finally, diligence. Detective Broughton's actions here-holding onto Babcock's phone over the weekend rather than more promptly attempting to secure a warrant, either telephonically or in person-further confirm that the seizure in this case looks nothing like a
Terry
stop. The government has offered no explanation as to why Detective Broughton waited more than two days to take any action regarding the phone, nor does the record evidence indicate that he explained to Babcock when or whether he could expect to get his phone
*1192
back. And while a two-day delay certainly wouldn't cross the line in the probable-cause context,
see, e.g.
,
Laist
,
* * *
Accordingly, we reject the government's contention that the officers' two-day detention of Babcock's cell phone was a mere investigatory "stop" allowable based on reasonable suspicion alone. Rather, we hold that it "ripened" into a full-blown seizure that required probable cause.
See
Puglisi
,
B
The government contends, in the alternative, that it can meet the probable-cause standard and, further, that it can show that exigent circumstances justified a warrantless seizure. We will consider the two components of the government's argument in turn, looking first to whether the officers at Babcock's residence had probable cause to believe that his phone contained evidence of a crime, and then to whether exigent circumstances excused them from the need to obtain a warrant pre-seizure.
1
Probable cause to seize property is what it sounds like-a belief that evidence will
probably
be found in a particular location.
See
United States v. Noriega
,
Babcock contends that while the officers in this case might have suspected that something was up, their collective knowledge at the time of the seizure didn't rise to the level of probable cause that a crime had been committed. To evaluate that contention, let's recap: At the time Detective Broughton retained Babcock's phone, the officers knew-
• that a domestic-disturbance call had reported a female at Babcock's residence yelling "Stop, stop, stop!";
• that after Babcock had denied that anyone else was in his camper, a teenage girl emerged with cuts on her legs;
• that Babcock had accompanied the girl to a Halloween party the night before, where she had consumed alcohol and drugs, and that she was in his camper the next morning;
*1193 • that the girl had been in or on Babcock's bed and left traces of blood there;
• that the girl had been distraught, holding a knife to her own throat and saying, "I just want to die"; and
• that shortly after they arrived at Babcock's residence, the girl appeared to be panicking or suffering an overdose.
Finally-and perhaps most tellingly-the officers knew that, while the girl sat on Babcock's bed with the knife to her neck, Babcock called her "dumb as f***" and then complained-in the present tense-that "this is what I deal with right here ... you gotta do drama and fighting me all over the place."
Collectively, these circumstances gave the officers probable cause to believe that Babcock had committed a crime against C.A. This common-sense conclusion doesn't depend on any particular fact taken in isolation; rather, as is "often" the case, "the whole is ... greater than the sum of its parts."
Wesby
,
From there, it required no leap for the officers to deduce that evidence of a crime would likely be found on Babcock's phone. The officers already knew that the phone contained one eyebrow-raising video suggesting an ongoing relationship between a grown man and a teenage girl. It was eminently reasonable for them to believe that additional evidence of that relationship-messages, texts, pictures, videos, etc.-would be found in the same place.
True, as Babcock points out, the government has been a little wishy-washy about the
exact
crime that the officers suspected at the time of the seizure. The government doesn't contend that the officers had probable cause to believe that the phone contained evidence of child pornography; rather, it concedes that until Detective Broughton confronted C.A. with the phone at the hospital post-seizure, he had "no reason to believe that there were videos of sexual activity between [the] two." Importantly, though, our precedent doesn't require officers to predict the eventually-charged offense in order to demonstrate probable cause, only that the collective facts would cause a "person of reasonable caution" to believe that "
a
criminal offense has been or is being committed."
See
Khokhar
,
Here, the government's arguments at the suppression hearing focused mainly on preserving both the video of C.A. on the bed and any evidence that might have shed light on the events leading up to it. And indeed, that is exactly what the officers ended up finding: evidence of an illegal, coercive relationship, confirming the suspicions sparked by the video's portrayal of Babcock's disdainful, bullying tone and C.A.'s distraught appearance. The fact that the phone also (and unexpectedly) contained pornographic images and videos doesn't invalidate probable cause for any number of Florida state crimes the officers reasonably could have believed occurred
*1194
based on the scene greeting them at Babcock's residence.
See, e.g.
,
2
Of course, probable cause isn't alone enough to seize an individual's personal property-officers typically need a warrant. "[A] warrantless search and seizure can be justified," however, "when probable cause has been established to believe that evidence will be removed or destroyed before a warrant can be obtained."
United States v. Young
,
Historically, we have found the exigent-circumstances exception "particularly compelling" in drug cases "because contraband and records can be easily and quickly destroyed while a search is progressing."
Young
,
To be clear, it's not that a cell phone
itself
creates an exigent circumstance. "Taken to its logical conclusion," that "would permit police officers to seize now-ubiquitous cell phones from any person, in any place, at any time, so long as the phone contains photographs or videos that could serve as evidence of a crime-simply because the 'nature' of the device used to capture that evidence
might
result in it being lost."
Crocker v. Beatty
,
This case is different. Given the facts here, a reasonable, experienced agent certainly could have believed that Babcock-the suspect, not a mere bystander-would delete any incriminating evidence on his phone before a warrant could be obtained. For starters, Babcock had tried to deceive the responding officers from the get-go, denying that anyone else was in his camper, reporting that C.A. had randomly shown up at his house in the middle of the night, and claiming that he didn't know her age-all lies. Moreover Babcock surely knew that he was under suspicion once Detective Broughton asked to search the camper and to further inspect his phone. Finally, of course, and on top of all that, the electronic files on Babcock's phone could have been "quickly destroyed while [the] search [wa]s progressing."
Young
,
Babcock contends that his offer to e-mail the video to the officers removed any urgency, thereby undermining any exigent-circumstances argument. He cites our decision in
United States v. Hernandez-Cano
,
Thus, because a reasonable officer could have believed that Babcock would delete any incriminating evidence on his phone before a warrant could be obtained-and because none of Babcock's arguments convinces us otherwise-we find that the exigent-circumstances exception applies in this case. 6
*1196 * * *
To sum up, we reject the government's contention that a two-day warrantless seizure of a suspect's cell phone is permissible based on reasonable suspicion alone. We conclude, however, that the warrantless seizure of Babcock's phone was lawful because the officers on the scene had probable cause to believe both that evidence of a crime would be found on it and that the evidence would be destroyed before they could obtain a warrant.
III
Babcock separately challenges his sentence, arguing that it is both (1) procedurally unreasonable because the district court erroneously imposed two enhancements for the same harm and (2) substantively unreasonable because it is too harsh in light of the facts. 7 Neither argument is persuasive.
Babcock raises his procedural-reasonableness argument for the first time on appeal, so we can correct any missteps only if he shows a "plain error" that affects his substantial rights and that seriously undermines the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.
See
United States v. Shelton
,
Double-counting occurs when one part of the Sentencing Guidelines is applied to increase a defendant's punishment on account of a harm that has already been fully accounted for by application of another part of the Guidelines.
See
United States v. Dudley
,
We conclude that applying both enhancements in this case constitutes cumulative- (rather than double-) counting. Chapter Two of the Guidelines, focusing on the sexual exploitation of minors through pictures, provides that an offender's base sentencing level should be enhanced by two when "the commission of a sexual act or sexual contact" occurs during a visual depiction. U.S.S.G. § 2G2.1(b)(2)(A). Chapter Four then makes clear that when a "pattern of ... prohibited sexual contact" occurs, a court should add five to "the offense level determined under Chapter[ ] Two." U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5(b). The Guidelines say nothing about adding this enhancement
*1197
to only a
portion
of the base level determined under Chapter Two, or otherwise adjusting the calculation in any way-instead, they simply presuppose that a certain offense level was determined under Chapter Two, and then instruct the sentencing court to add five levels, period. Nothing in the Guidelines, then, indicates that these sections may not be applied cumulatively.
See
Kapordelis
,
Looking next to substantive reasonableness, Babcock argues that the nature and circumstances of this case do not compel the same severe sentence required to deter creators of commercial child pornography. Basically, Babcock contends that his crime-an inappropriate, long-term relationship with an older teenager-doesn't indicate that he is a threat to children generally or affect the child-pornography market as would, for instance, the rape of a child for video distribution or other predatory production of commercial child pornography. Babcock asserts that because there is no evidence that he intended ever to show anyone his videos or pictures of C.A., his 324-month sentence is substantively unreasonable.
We review challenges to the substantive reasonableness of a sentence for abuse of discretion.
Gall v. United States
,
There is a certain intuitive logic to Babcock's argument here-it's true that nothing in the record necessarily indicates a propensity to distribute child pornography. That being said, Babcock's conduct falls squarely within the confines of § 2G2.1 -"sexually exploiting a minor by production of sexually explicit visual or printed material"-and, as the sentencing judge emphasized, the effect of his actions on C.A. and her family was far from insignificant. We are comfortable that the sentencing judge took into consideration all of the relevant circumstances when he sentenced Babcock to 324 months-a downward variance from the 360 to 720 months recommended by the Guidelines.
See
Gonzalez
,
IV
For the foregoing reasons, we hold (1) that reasonable suspicion alone could not have justified the officers' warrantless two-day seizure of Babcock's cell phone; (2) that the officers in this case had probable cause to believe that a crime had been committed, that evidence of the crime would be found on Babcock's phone, and that there was a risk that Babcock would destroy the evidence before they could get a warrant, such that the seizure did not violate the Fourth Amendment; and (3) that Babcock's sentence was both procedurally *1198 and substantively reasonable. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of Babcock's motion to suppress as well as its 324-month sentence.
AFFIRMED.
When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we review factual findings for clear error and legal determinations
de novo
.
United States v. Gibson
,
Even though the detention there more directly implicated the owner's liberty interests than in
Place
because the owner remained in his car while it was transported to another location, we analyzed the stop primarily as one of property rather than of an individual.
See
Virden
,
The diligence component of the analysis necessarily intersects with the duration component because, "[i]n the ordinary case, the sooner the warrant issues, the sooner the property owner's possessory rights can be restored if the search reveals nothing incriminating"-and, of course, the sooner an officer seeks a warrant, the sooner a warrant can issue.
See
Mitchell
,
The government suggested for the first time at oral argument that, rather than lasting two days, the reasonable-suspicion-based seizure lasted only until Detective Broughton used the phone to prompt C.A.'s confession, at which time the reasonable suspicion became probable cause and, presumably, washed away any budding issues with the seizure. We decline to wade into this argument when the entire record below is predicated on the seizure lasting two days. Because the government made no argument-and the district court made no finding-concerning the length of time between the seizure and the confession, any determination of the same on our part would be mere speculation.
See
Byrd v. United States
, --- U.S. ----,
Babcock asserts that the government forfeited its exigency argument by failing to use the phrase "exigent circumstances"-and failing to fully develop its position regarding the same-in its response to the motion to suppress. We disagree. While it's true that alternative theories of admissibility-including exigent circumstances-can be forfeited even when the government is the appellee or respondent,
see
Steagald v. United States
,
The government also argues in the alternative that Babcock consented to the seizure by voluntarily providing his phone to the officers to display the video of C.A. threatening self-harm. It is well-settled, however, that "the scope of a search based on consent may not exceed the scope of the given consent."
United States v. Watkins
,
Babcock also argues that his sentence is procedurally unreasonable because the government did not group two counts of conviction which were based on the same harm. As the government points out, though, the Guidelines specifically exclude convictions under § 2G2.1 from the grouping rules. See U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2(d).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. Darrell Mark BABCOCK, Defendant - Appellant.
- Cited By
- 26 cases
- Status
- Published