Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-08-03243/USCOURTS-ca8-08-03243-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Donald Gene Colbert
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Robert W. Pratt, Chief Judge, United States District Court for

the Southern District of Iowa. Thereafter, the case was assigned to the Honorable

John A. Jarvey, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 08-3243

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Southern District of Iowa.

Donald Gene Colbert, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: May 15, 2009

Filed: May 20, 2010

___________

Before WOLLMAN, JOHN R. GIBSON, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

___________

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Donald Gene Colbert conditionally pleaded guilty to possession of child

pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B), and was sentenced to 120

months’ imprisonment. He appeals, arguing that the district court1

 erred in denying

his motion to suppress evidence because the search warrant was not supported by

probable cause. We affirm.

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-2-

I.

On June 7, 2006, Detectives Kelly Myers and Mike Martin of the Davenport,

Iowa, Police Department drove to Vandeveer Park to investigate a complaint of

suspicious activity related to a young child. Upon arriving at the park, the detectives

spoke with the child’s uncle, who informed them that he had become concerned after

observing a man interacting with the uncle’s five-year-old niece, pushing her on a

swing and talking about movies and videos the man had at his home. The detectives

spoke with the child and two other witnesses and obtained a description of what was

later determined to be Colbert’s vehicle: a blue sedan with rear antennas resembling

those of a police cruiser. 

While Detectives Myers and Martin were still at the park, two patrol officers

identified the vehicle and stopped Colbert. Colbert consented to a search of his

vehicle and agreed to speak with Myers and Martin, who had arrived at the scene of

the traffic stop. Inside Colbert’s car the detectives found a police scanner, handcuffs,

and a hat bearing the phrase “New York PD.” Colbert told the officers that he had the

handcuffs because he had been employed as a security guard four years earlier, and

he admitted speaking to the girl about movies that he had at his apartment. Colbert

was then taken to the police station for questioning.

Detective Myers meanwhile relayed information from the investigation to

Detective Mark Dinneweth, who drafted a warrant application seeking permission to

search Colbert’s residence for books, photos, videos, and other electronic media

depicting “minors engaged in a prohibited sexual act or in the simulation of a

prohibited sexual act.” In support of the warrant, Detective Dinneweth set forth the

following summation of the investigation:

On 06-07-06 officers responded to Vandeveer Park reference a

suspicious subject.

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-3-

During the course of the investigation it was determined Donald Colbert

512 E Locust St Apt #3 attempted to lure a five year old female to go to

his apartment.

Colbert conducted a conversation with the girl for approximately forty

minutes telling his apartment had movies and videos she would like to

watch and other things for the girl to do.

Colbert’s license plate IA 510NYF was provided by a witness and the

vehicle was located by officers at Colbert’s apartment.

Colbert gave consent to search his vehicle where officers observed a

police scanner, binoculars, a police type hat, handcuffs, and the vehicle

was equipped with CB antennas making it similar to a police vehicle. 

 

An Iowa state district judge issued a search warrant for Colbert’s apartment.

The subsequent search resulted in the discovery of a number of children’s movies, a

computer, and numerous compact discs containing child pornography. 

II.

On an appeal of a denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we review the

district court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo.

United States v. Lemon, 590 F.3d 612, 614 (8th Cir. 2010). 

Colbert argues that the evidence seized from his apartment should have been

excluded because the search warrant was not supported by probable cause. “Probable

cause means a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in

a particular place, given the circumstances set forth in the affidavit.” Id. (quoting

United States v. Horn, 187 F.3d 781, 785 (8th Cir. 1999)). Probable cause is a fluid

concept that focuses on “the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on

which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.” Illinois v. Gates, 462

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 3 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-4-

U.S. 213, 231 (1983) (internal quotation omitted). Determining whether probable

cause exists requires a commonsense analysis of the facts available to the judicial

officer who issued the warrant. See id. at 230, 238. We accord great deference to the

judicial officer’s initial, on-the-scene determination that probable cause has been

established. United States v. Maxim, 55 F.3d 394, 397 (8th Cir. 1995).

Colbert first objects to the affidavit on the ground that it was conclusory in

nature, failing to specify the source of the information that it contained. Colbert cites

Illinois v. Gates, in which the Supreme Court explained that an affidavit that is

“wholly conclusory” cannot establish probable cause. 462 U.S. at 239. As examples

of affidavits in this category, the Court cited cases in which law enforcement officers

simply stated that they believed or had a credible reason to believe that a search would

yield evidence of criminal conduct. Id. The Court explained that such affidavits are

insufficient because they provide the issuing magistrate with no independent basis for

making the probable cause determination. Id. That is not the type of affidavit we

have here.

Although the affidavit in this case may not be a model of detailed police work,

it sets forth a number of specific facts and explains the investigation that took place.

As Colbert points out, Detective Dinneweth did not word the affidavit in the first

person. But his statements supported a fair inference that the police officers were the

source of the information and that Dinneweth had firsthand knowledge of the

investigation. Accordingly, we reject the argument that the affidavit was too

conclusory to establish probable cause. See United States v. Summage, 481 F.3d

1075, 1078 (8th Cir. 2007) (holding as not fatally conclusory an affidavit that

contained a statement that lent itself to a fair inference about the source of the

information).

Colbert next contends that the facts set forth in the affidavit failed to establish

probable cause to search his apartment for child pornography. He argues that the

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 4 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-5-

affidavit did not establish a link between the evidence of enticement at the park and

child pornography in his home. Although this issue presents a closer question, we

conclude that the affidavit established probable cause.

The affidavit included evidence that Colbert had attempted to lure a five-yearold girl to his apartment. Colbert had a vehicle and clothing that made him look like

a police officer, suggesting that he was attempting to appear as an authority figure.

The affidavit also related that Colbert possessed handcuffs and a pair of binoculars,

which could reasonably give rise to the inference that he was surveilling the area,

looking for opportune targets. For no apparent reason, Colbert approached a fiveyear-old girl and spoke with her for approximately forty minutes. Finally, the

affidavit explained that Colbert attempted to convince the girl to accompany him to

his apartment, where he claimed to have movies for her to watch and other things for

her to do. Taken together, those facts tend to paint a picture of an older male

attempting to entice a young girl into sexual activity. 

The district court concluded that this information established probable cause to

search Colbert’s apartment because “individuals sexually interested in children

frequently utilize child pornography to reduce the inhibitions of their victims.” The

court found that sexual depictions of minors could be logically related to the crime of

child enticement, particularly under the facts of this case, in which Colbert had

referred to movies and videos that he wanted the child to view at his apartment. We

agree. Notwithstanding the affidavit’s admitted lack of detail, the reviewing

magistrate could have reasonably concluded that the search of Colbert’s apartment

was justified on this basis. 

Other circuits have dealt with the question whether evidence of child

molestation or pedophilic tendencies can support probable cause to search for child

pornography. In United States v. Hodson, the Sixth Circuit held that a search for child

pornography was not supported by probable cause where the affidavit was based on

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 5 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-6-

the defendant’s online confession to an undercover officer that he had an attraction to

children and had sexually molested a seven-year-old boy. 543 F.3d 286, 292 (6th Cir.

2008). Noting the lack of expert testimony in the affidavit about the relationship

between molestation and child pornography, the court found the affidavit lacking

because it “established probable cause for one crime (child molestation) but designed

and requested a search for evidence of an entirely different crime (child

pornography).” Id. A divided panel of the Second Circuit reached a similar

conclusion in United States v. Falso, invalidating a search warrant for child

pornography that was based in part on evidence that the defendant had previously

been arrested for sexually abusing a minor. 544 F.3d 110, 124 (2d Cir. 2008). The

court stated that the fact that “the law criminalizes both child pornography and the

sexual abuse (or endangerment) of children cannot be enough. They are separate

offenses and . . . nothing in the affidavit draws a correlation between a person’s

propensity to commit both types of crimes.” Id. at 123. But see id. at 132

(Livingston, J., concurring in part) (“Given the evidence . . . that child pornography

is often used by pedophiles and child sexual abusers to stimulate themselves and to

entice young victims, a person of reasonable caution would take into account

predilections revealed by past crimes or convictions as part of the inquiry into

probable cause.”) (internal citations and quotation omitted).

Hodson and Falso are factually inapposite. Neither case involved an application

for a search warrant based on the defendant’s contemporaneous attempt to entice a

child. See Falso, 544 F.3d at 114 (stating that the evidence of defendant’s prior sexual

abuse was approximately eighteen years old); Hodson, 543 F.3d at 287 (noting that

the warrant application was prepared almost three months after the internet chat that

gave rise to the search). And neither case involved an application to search the exact

location of the relevant sex crime. Here, in contrast, law enforcement officers drafted

the search warrant as an immediate response to Colbert’s attempted enticement. The

officers executed the warrant on the same day that Colbert approached the child at the

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 6 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-7-

park, and they focused their search on the very place where Colbert had expressed a

desire to be alone with a five-year-old girl. 

Moreover, to the extent that Hodson and Falso suggest that evidence of a

defendant’s tendency to sexually abuse or exploit children is irrelevant to the probable

cause analysis, we respectfully disagree. Both courts based their conclusions on a

categorical distinction between possession of child pornography and other types of

sexual exploitation of children. But that distinction seems to be in tension both with

common experience and a fluid, non-technical conception of probable cause. See

Gates, 462 U.S. at 230-32. Evidence adduced to support probable cause must be

“weighed not in terms of library analysis by scholars, but as understood by those

versed in the field of law enforcement.” Id. at 232 (internal quotation omitted). The

probable cause analysis is “not readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal

rules.” Id. 

There is an intuitive relationship between acts such as child molestation or

enticement and possession of child pornography. Child pornography is in many cases

simply an electronic record of child molestation. Computers and internet connections

have been characterized elsewhere as tools of the trade for those who sexually prey on

children. See, e.g., United States v. Paton, 535 F.3d 829, 836 (8th Cir. 2008). For

individuals seeking to obtain sexual gratification by abusing children, possession of

child pornography may very well be a logical precursor to physical interaction with a

child: the relative ease with which child pornography may be obtained on the internet

might make it a simpler and less detectable way of satisfying pedophilic desires. Cf.

United States v. Byrd, 31 F.3d 1329, 1339 (5th Cir. 1994) ([C]ommon sense would

indicate that a person who is sexually interested in children is likely to also be inclined,

i.e., predisposed, to order and receive child pornography.”). Accordingly, we conclude

that Colbert’s attempt to entice a child was a factor that the judicial officer reasonably

could have considered in determining whether Colbert likely possessed child

pornography, all the more so in light of the evidence that Colbert heightened the allure

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 7 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-8-

of his attempted inveiglement by telling the child that he had movies she would like

to watch. That information established a direct link to Colbert’s apartment and raised

a fair question as to the nature of the materials to which he had referred. Although the

return on the warrant does not list the titles of the children’s movies found in his

apartment, it would strain credulity to believe that Colbert was attempting to lure the

child there to watch, say, “Mary Poppins” or “The Sound of Music,” or to engage in

basket weaving or a game of pickup sticks. The circumstances suggest that Colbert

intended to victimize the child in some manner, and as the Supreme Court recognized

nearly twenty years ago, “evidence suggests that pedophiles use child pornography to

seduce other children into sexual activity.” Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103, 111

(1990). Thus, the state court judge could reasonably have concluded that the facts in

the affidavit established a fair probability that child pornography would be found in

Colbert’s apartment. 

There no doubt were ways in which the affidavit could have been strengthened

by the inclusion of additional information. The law enforcement officers involved in

obtaining the warrant testified at the suppression hearing about their knowledge of the

link between child enticement and possession of child pornography. Dinneweth

testified that, based upon his training and experience, “a subject trying to lure a 5 year

old, they do possess pornographic material, specifically child pornography,” and that

he had forgotten to include that information in the affidavit. Our task is not to criticize

the affidavit for what it did not contain but to determine, under a commonsense, nontechnical analysis that gives due deference to the initial judgment of the issuing

magistrate, whether what it did contain established probable cause to search for that

which it described. Under that standard, we conclude that the affidavit was sufficient.

III.

Finally, even if we were to hold that the affidavit failed to establish probable

cause, suppression of the evidence would not be appropriate because Colbert has not

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 8 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-9-

shown that the officers acted unreasonably in carrying out the search. See United States

v. Proell, 485 F.3d 427, 430-31 (8th Cir. 2007) (explaining the good faith exception

to the exclusionary rule). As the foregoing discussion illustrates, the warrant

application included some evidence from which reasonable officers might believe that

a search for child pornography was justified. There is no indication that the state court

judge failed to perform his proper judicial function or that the officers in this case acted

other than in good faith when they carried out the search. 

We conclude that the district court did not err in refusing to suppress evidence

obtained from Colbert’s apartment, and thus we affirm the judgment.

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

Because I disagree that the facts set forth in the affidavit establish probable cause

to search Colbert’s apartment for child pornography, I respectfully dissent. The

majority relies upon a dangerous assumption in reaching its conclusion that the

affidavit satisfies the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.

It is an inferential fallacy of ancient standing to conclude that, because

members of group A (those who collect child pornography) are likely to

be members of group B (those attracted to children), then group B is

entirely, or even largely composed of, members of group A. Although

offenses relating to child pornography and sexual abuse of minors both

involve the exploitation of children, that does not compel, or even

suggest, the correlation drawn by the district court. Perhaps it is true that

all or most people who are attracted to minors collect child pornography.

But that association is nowhere stated or supported in the affidavit. While

the district court undoubtedly had the safety of the public in mind, an

individual's Fourth Amendment right cannot be vitiated based on

fallacious inferences drawn from facts not supported by the affidavit. 

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 9 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-10-

United States v. Falso, 544 F.3d 110, 123 (2d Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks and

citations omitted).

Here, Colbert was reported to have carried on a lengthy conversation with a

young girl in a park. Based on this interaction, and evidence indicating that Colbert

possessed handcuffs and other items consistent with the appearance of a police officer,

Detective Myers and Sergeant Glandon decided to obtain a warrant to search Colbert’s

residence for the “children’s movies” Colbert had allegedly discussed with the child.

Detective Dinneweth then prepared a search warrant affidavit vaguely describing the

events at the park and the evidence obtained during the search of Colbert’s car.

Although the affidavit likely provided probable cause to search for evidence of child

enticement, the warrant sought only evidence related to the crime of child

pornography. 

As the majority notes, several courts have specifically rejected the idea that

probable cause to believe that an individual engaged in the crime of child enticement,

or even child molestation, is sufficient to establish probable cause to search the

individual’s home for evidence of child pornography. See Falso, 544 F.3d at 123;

United States v. Hodson, 543 F.3d 286 (6th Cir. 2008) (holding that affidavit

establishing crime of child molestation was insufficient to search for evidence of child

pornography); see also United States v. Crespo-Rios, 623 F.Supp.2d 198 (D. Puerto

Rico 2009) (same); People of the Virgin Islands v. John, 2009 WL 2043872 (S.Ct. V.I.

July 1, 2009) (per curiam) (same). After dismissing contrary authority, the majority

quotes language from two cases concerning a possible relationship between possession

of child pornography and child exploitation, neither of which stand for the proposition

that probable cause for one of the crimes is sufficient to allow a search for evidence of

the other. 

Recognizing this weakness, the panel goes on to hang its hat on Colbert’s

alleged statement that he “had movies and videos [the child] would like to watch.” The

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 10 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-11-

majority states that “it would strain credulity to believe that Colbert was attempting to

lure the child there to watch, say ‘Mary Poppins’ or ‘the Sound of Music’ . . . .” The

record, however, reveals otherwise. Detective Myers specifically testified that she and

Sergeant Glandon decided to seek a search warrant in order to obtain the “children’s

movies” Colbert had discussed with the child:

Q: And according to your report, Sergeant Glandon suggested getting a

search warrant for the residence to look for the numerous children’s

movies Colbert claimed to have; isn’t that correct?

A: Correct

Q: The children’s movies?

A: Correct

Detective Myers also explained the reason why Colbert was likely referencing

children’s movies:

Well, it’s our training that a subject that would discuss interesting things

to do back at their home or that they have children’s movies back there

is a way to make that location desirable to the child to try to get trust to

try to get the child to go with them. 

Finally, Detective Myers replied “No” when the Court asked whether she was asserting

that “if he, Mr. Colbert, was talking about movies with a 5 year old, that it’s most

likely pornographic movies? Is that what you’re telling me?”

A court should not substitute its own assumptions for the experienced expertise

of Detective Myers and others trained in the area of child crimes. At best, the affidavit

established probable cause to believe that Colbert was involved in the crime of child

enticement. Even if a relationship exists between child enticement and child

pornography,“it was unreasonable for the magistrate judge . . . to infer such a nexus

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 11 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546
-12-

without further evidence to support that inference.” Hodson, 543 F.3d at 293.

Accordingly, I would conclude that the warrant did not comply with the Fourth

Amendment. 

Finally, I disagree with the majority’s alternative conclusion that the search can

be upheld under the Leon good-faith exception. See United States v. Leon , 468 U.S.

897 (1984). For the same reasons articulated in Hodson, I conclude that the search

warrant was so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its

existence unreasonable.

[I]t was unreasonable for the officer executing the warrant in this case to

believe that probable cause existed to search [defendant’s] computers for

child pornography based solely on a suspicion . . . [defendant] had

engaged in child molestation. And, based on the record evidence, it

appears that the only reason that the officer executing the search warrant

. . . did not recognize the insufficiency of the warrant was that [the

detective] was also the investigating officer who prepared the affidavit,

obtained the warrant, and had specialized, subjective knowledge about

these kinds of criminal offenses, this search, and this case. But, as the

Supreme Court has made clear, such subjective knowledge is not

sufficient to satisfy a finding of objective good faith.

543 F.3d at 293.

Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the district court.

______________________________

Appellate Case: 08-3243 Page: 12 Date Filed: 05/20/2010 Entry ID: 3666546