United States v. Peterson, No. 19-10246 (9th Cir. 2021)
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The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's orders denying defendant's motion to withdraw his guilty plea to receipt of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(2), and his motions to suppress evidence of sexually explicit images of minors found on two cell phones.
The panel rejected defendant's contention that he was not fully informed of the essential elements of the crime of receipt of child pornography where his indictment, his plea agreement, and the colloquy informed him of the elements required to be proven; he does not assert that his counsel failed to inform him of the knowledge requirement for each element of the offense; and there is no indication that the Government misunderstood the elements. The panel affirmed the denial of defendant's motion to suppress as to the parole searches because defendant, a California parolee, had the same diminished privacy interest, and the State of California had the same substantial interest in supervising parolees as discussed in United States v. Johnson, 875 F.3d 1265 (9th Cir. 2017). The panel also affirmed the denial of defendant's motion to suppress as to the forensic searches because any illegality in the initial seizure of forensic images from defendant's cell phones was cured by the subsequent issuance of a warrant to search the forensic images from cell phones that were legally seized from defendant as the result of valid parole searches.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel affirmed the district court’s orders denying (1) the defendant’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea to receipt of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2), and (2) his motions to suppress evidence of sexually explicit images of minors found on two cell phones. In seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, the defendant contended that he was not fully informed of the essential elements of the crime of receipt of child pornography— specifically, that the district court failed to explain the Government’s burden to prove that he knew the visual depiction was a minor and that he knew the visual depiction showed the minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The panel held that the district court acted within its discretion in denying the motion to withdraw the guilty plea. The panel wrote that as the grammatical structure of § 2252 applies “knowingly” to both the sexually explicit nature of the material and the age of the performers, the indictment, by tracking that language, adequately informed the defendant that the crime of receipt of materials invoking the sexual exploitation of minors required proof of those elements. More importantly, the defendant affirmed in his plea agreement and to the court that he had read the charges contained in the indictment, discussed them with his attorney who “fully explained” the charges, and that he fully understood the nature and elements of the crime charged. UNITED STATES V. PETERSON 3 The defendant argued that the parole searches in which the cell phones were seized were not authorized because his parole conditions did not unambiguously include cell phones and their content as property subject to search. Affirming the denial of the motion to suppress with respect to the parole searches, the panel explained that the defendant, a California parolee, had the same diminished privacy interest, and the State of California had the same substantial interest in supervising parolees as discussed in United States v. Johnson, 875 F.3d 1265 (9th Cir. 2017). The defendant argued that the illegal seizure of his cell phones during the parole searches required suppression of forensic evidence subsequently obtained pursuant to a warrant because the phones had been illegally kept in the possession of the Government. Affirming the denial of the motion to suppress with respect to the forensic searches, the panel wrote that any illegality in the initial seizure of forensic images from the defendant’s cell phones was cured by the subsequent issuance of a warrant to search the forensic images from the phones that were legally seized as the result of valid parole searches. 4 UNITED STATES V. PETERSON
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