In re Hopper
In re Hopper
Opinion of the Court
¶ 1 Eric Hopper collaterally challenges his 2014 conviction for commercial sexual abuse of a minor. He claims that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance because his counsel did not move to suppress evidence of his text messages. He called and sent text messages to the number listed in a Backpage.com advertisement featuring a photograph of an unidentifiable female with the fictitious name of "Whisper." He ultimately paid to have sex with K.H., the 16-year-old girl pictured in the ad. Although he believed that he was communicating with K.H. by text, he was actually communicating with her pimp, Allixzander Park. Hopper asserts that Park violated the Washington privacy act
¶ 2 But the totality of the circumstances show that Hopper did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in these text messages. Thus, his text messages to K.H. were *230not "private communications." Park did not violate the act, and Hopper's trial counsel acted reasonably in not requesting suppression of the text messages. We dismiss Hopper's petition.
FACTS
¶ 3 In December 2012, Hopper searched Backpage.com
¶ 4 Hopper saw an advertisement for a woman named "Whisper," who he later learned was K.H. The ad stated that she was 19 years old. She was actually 16 years old. It listed a phone number that Hopper both called and contacted by text. When he contacted the number by text, he initially believed that he was communicating with K.H. But K.H.'s pimp, Allixzander Park, had listed his own number on the ad and was reading and responding to Hopper's text messages.
¶ 5 In December 2012, police arrested Park and, with a warrant, searched his cell phone. K.H. told police that Hopper had paid to have sex with her and identified him from a photograph montage. The police located Hopper's home address from the text messages stored on Park's phone. The State charged Hopper with commercial sexual abuse of a minor. In March 2014, a jury convicted Hopper as charged. Hopper appealed his conviction. This court affirmed the conviction in an unpublished opinion.
ANALYSIS
¶ 6 As a preliminary matter, the State asserts that this court's rejection of Hopper's privacy act claim on the merits in his direct appeal bars Hopper from raising this claim again in his PRP. Because our earlier opinion did not clearly address the merits of Hopper's current claim, we do not reach this issue.
¶ 7 Hopper claims that his trial counsel should have asked the trial court to suppress his text messages to K.H., which police found stored on Park's cellular phone. Because he does not establish that these text messages were "private communications" under the act, he does not show that his counsel's performance fell below an objectively reasonable standard of care. His claim fails.
Standard of Review
¶ 8 To obtain collateral relief by a PRP, a defendant must show either an error of constitutional magnitude that gives rise to actual prejudice or a nonconstitutional error that " 'inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice.' "
¶ 9 Claims of ineffective assistance present mixed questions of law and fact, *231which this court reviews de novo.
¶ 10 This court approaches an ineffective assistance of counsel claim with a strong presumption that counsel provided effective representation.
Washington Privacy Act
¶ 11 Hopper asserts that Park violated the act by "intercepting" his text messages to K.H., which he claims were "private communications." He contends that because evidence deriving from information obtained in violation of the act is inadmissible under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine, his trial counsel performed deficiently when his counsel failed to move to suppress the relevant text messagesthat police found stored on Park's phone. Because we conclude that Hopper's text messages to K.H. are not "private communications," Park did not violate the act. This decision resolves this case. So we do not address Hopper's remaining arguments.
¶ 12 A privacy act violation occurs when "(1) a private communication transmitted by a device ... was (2) intercepted or recorded by use of (3) a device designed to record and/or transmit (4) without the consent of all parties to the private communication."
¶ 13 The act does not define "private."
*232
¶ 14 Hopper likens his case to State v. Roden
¶ 15 By contrast, in State v. Goucher,
¶ 16 Similarly, in State v. Clark,
*233¶ 17 Here, although Hopper had a subjective expectation of privacy in his text messages to K.H., this expectation was unreasonable. So he does not satisfy the objective prong of the test, and his claim fails. Hopper testified that he searched Backpage.com knowing that it contained advertisements for prostitution. He saw what he later learned was K.H.'s advertisement, which listed a phone number underneath a female's picture that did not show her face. Although the ad did not state her name, Hopper testified that the description implied she went by "Whisper."
¶ 18 He called the number with the intent of scheduling sex, and a female voice answered. K.H. testified that she did, in fact, speak to Hopper on the phone; she stated that individuals calling in response to the ad would call Park's phone and Park would give her the phone to talk to them. When Hopper called, he told her that he had seen her ad and wanted to negotiate a meeting. Hopper also sent K.H. numerous text messages before he met her in person. He stated that she "seemed very nervous in text, but not via voice, about whether I would actually be there or not ... [w]hich was a little confusing to me."
¶ 19 When K.H. met Hopper at his home, he recognized her as the woman with whom he believed he had been communicating because "her shape and overall appearance matched the ad." After they had sex, Hopper paid her $250. But soon after she left, he received a text message asking, "[D]id you give me $250?" At that point, he "started being very worried that she had a pimp." He stated that after that text conversation, "[i]t was really obvious that I wasn't talking to her." Days later, when Hopper attempted to set up another meeting with her through text, he was "fairly certain that [he] was talking to her pimp."
¶ 20 Similar to Townsend, who intended to communicate only with Amber, Hopper intended to communicate only with the woman pictured in the Backpage.com ad. Because Hopper called the number listed in the ad, a female voice answered, he told her that he had seen her ad on Backpage.com, and they discussed a time to meet, his text messages were " 'for her eyes only.' "
¶ 21 But Hopper's subjective expectation of privacy was objectively unreasonable. He responded to an ad on Backpage.com, a website notorious for advertising prostitution activity. The ad was titled "any way you want it 19" and featured an unidentifiable woman with a fictitious name. A reasonable person would not expect that contacting a stranger by text through the phone number listed in this advertisement would provide a legitimate opportunity for a private conversation with a known person. Even Hopper admitted that "the picture wasn't a good enough picture to clearly identify a specific person."
¶ 22 The facts here differ from Clark because Hopper's text messages did not occur in a "marketplace atmosphere" or in front of third parties. But, as in Goucher, Hopper told a stranger that he was interested in illegal activity. When he called the number listed in the ad, a woman answered who he believed was the woman in the ad, but when he proceeded to send text messages to the same number, he could not be sure whether a man or a woman was responding, let alone the woman in the ad. And, unlike Townsend, who began communicating with "Amber" over e-mail and a discussion software program under pretense of developing a social relationship, Hopper called to directly solicit sex.
¶ 23 In addition, although Hopper was not certain that he was talking to a pimp until *234after he had sex with K.H., the fact that K.H. "seemed very nervous in text, but not via voice" confused him and indicated that, at a minimum, he was not talking with and text messaging the same person. And regardless of whether Hopper was initially aware of K.H.'s pimp, it is common knowledge that prostitutes often have pimps. Thus, even though Hopper subjectively intended for his text messages to K.H. to be private, his communications were not private because this expectation was unreasonable. Park did not violate the act when he recorded and stored Hopper's messages to K.H. on his cell phone.
CONCLUSION
¶ 24 We dismiss Hopper's PRP. His trial counsel did not provide ineffective assistance by failing to move to suppress his text messages to K.H. because those messages were not "private communications" under the privacy act.
WE CONCUR:
Verellen, J.
Schindler, J.
Ch. 9.73 RCW.
The Department of Justice seized Backpage.com in April 2018. Press Release, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Justice Department Leads Effort to Seize Backpage.Com, the Internet's Leading Forum for Prostitution Ads, and Obtains 93-Count Federal Indictment (April 9, 2018), https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ justice-department-leads-effort-seize-backpagecom-internet-s-leading-forum-prostitution-ads.
State v. Hopper, No. 71799-5-1 (Wash. Ct. App. June 8, 2015) (unpublished opinion), http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/17995.pdf.
On June 13, 2017, the clerk of this court granted the State's motion to transfer the record from his direct appeal.
In re Pers. Restraint of Grantham,
See State v. Grier,
In re Pers. Restraint of Fleming,
Strickland v. Washington,
In re Pers. Restraint of Crace,
In re Pers. Restraint of Davis,
Davis,
Davis,
Strickland,
Strickland,
State v. Hendrickson,
State v. Roden,
Roden,
See ch. 9.73 RCW; Roden,
Roden,
State v. Modica,
Roden,
Roden,
"ICQ [is] an Internet discussion software program that allows real-time client-to-client communications." State v. Townsend,
Townsend,
Townsend,
Goucher,
Goucher,
Clark, 129 Wash.2d at 214-15, 228,
Roden,
Personal restraint petition at 22 (quoting Townsend,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- In the MATTER OF the Personal Restraint of Eric Matthew HOPPER
- Cited By
- 6 cases
- Status
- Published