Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03615/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03615-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Wesley George Thorn
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Ortrie D. Smith, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri, adopting the report and recommendations of the Honorable

James C. England, United States Magistrate Judge for the Western District of

Missouri. 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 03-3615

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Western District of Missouri.

Wesley George Thorn, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: February 10, 2004

 Filed: July 13, 2004

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, BOWMAN and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judges.

___________

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Wesley Thorn was charged with one count of possession of child

pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(a)(4)(B) and 2252(b) (2000). The

District Court1

 denied Thorn's motion to suppress evidence obtained in a search of his

office at the Missouri Division of Child Support Enforcement ("DCSE"), and he

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A conditional guilty plea reserves to the defendant the right to appeal, after the

trial court has accepted the plea and imposed judgment, the denial of the defendant's

motion to suppress evidence that, in the defendant's view, was illegally obtained.

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entered a conditional plea of guilty to the charge.2

 He was sentenced to twenty-seven

months of imprisonment with three years of supervised release. Thorn appeals the

District Court's denial of his motion to suppress.

The child pornography at issue was discovered on computer media found in

Thorn's DCSE office in Joplin, Missouri, which had been searched during an

investigation of claims of workplace misconduct on Thorn's part. On February 8,

2002, Valerie Davis, Thorn's supervisor in the Joplin office, began investigating

purported workplace misconduct after she received complaints that Thorn was

inaccessible and had copied and distributed non-work-related e-mail messages

throughout the office. To determine whether Thorn had used his DCSE computer to

distribute the offending e-mail, Davis instructed a computer information technician

to conduct a remote examination of the contents of the hard drive of the computer.

The technician found a copy of the e-mail on the hard drive and further discovered

that Thorn had used his computer to access adult pornographic websites. After

learning that Thorn had used his computer to access pornographic materials in

contravention of express policy, Davis contacted Dan Padfield, Regional Manager of

DCSE in charge of the Joplin office. Thorn's supervisors decided to place him on

administrative leave pending further investigation of his computer misconduct.

On February 11, 2002, Padfield visited the Joplin office in order to secure

Thorn's computer for further investigation. He ultimately took the computer tower

and numerous floppy disks from Thorn's office, in order to examine their contents to

determine the scope of Thorn's violations of the agency's computer-use policy. Thorn

called in sick and was informed of the decision to place him on leave. He requested

permission to access his office in order to retrieve certain tax documents. Padfield

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informed Thorn that he could not remove anything from his office, but offered to

retrieve the tax forms for him. Thorn agreed to this arrangement and gave

instructions as to where the documents were located in the desk. In his search for

these materials, Padfield discovered pornographic material interspersed with other

documents in the desk. Padfield then informed Dianne Goetz, human resources

manager of DCSE, of the discovery of further pornographic materials. Goetz decided

to terminate Thorn's employment for his violations of the agency's code of conduct,

its sexual-harassment policy and its computer-use policy. Padfield and Davis then

contacted investigators at the Division of Legal Services ("DLS") and requested they

visit the Joplin office and inventory the contents of Thorn's office and computer

media for the purpose of setting forth the reasons for the termination of his

employment. In examining the contents of the floppy disks Padfield had taken from

Thorn's office, a DLS investigator discovered images of child pornography. Because

he had discovered possibly criminal contraband, he immediately stopped cataloguing

the contents of the disks and instructed another DLS investigator to contact lawenforcement officers at the Joplin Police Department.

DCSE is an agency within the Missouri Department of Social Services

("DSS"). DSS has a communication policy which explicitly forbids personal use of

the agency's computer systems and limits access to certain materials: "Electronic mail

is to be used for work-related reasons only. All electronic messages, documents . . .

or pictures that are . . . sexual, pornographic, inappropriate, harassing . . . are

prohibited." Dept. of Soc. Servs. Memo on Communication Sys. (Jan. 3, 2000).

Furthermore, this policy imposes an affirmative duty upon agency employees to

report any suspected abuse of the agency's computer systems: "Employees should

immediately report to their supervisors the receipt of any inappropriate and

unsolicited electronic communications, any accidental access to Internet sites, and

any unauthorized use of DSS information technology and systems by other employees

. . . ." Id. In addition, the policy expressly provides that "Employees do not have any

personal privacy rights regarding their use of DSS information systems and

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technology. An employee's use of DSS information systems and technology indicates

that the employee understands and consents to DSS'[s] right to inspect and audit all

such use as described in this policy." Id. (emphasis in original). Thorn

acknowledged this policy in writing when he requested computer access in 2000.

Online Security Access Request (Nov. 3, 2000).

After getting affidavits from the DCSE and DLS officials, who set forth their

discovery of adult and child pornographic materials, Lieutenant Carl Francis of the

Joplin Police Department obtained a search warrant on February 15, 2002, to permit

him to search for and seize such evidence from Thorn's office. One month later,

Francis obtained another warrant to permit the examination of the contents of the

seized computer media. The searches pursuant to these warrants uncovered child

pornography in the desk and filing cabinet of Thorn's office and on certain floppy

disks removed from the office. Thorn, having been charged with the offense to which

he later entered a conditional plea of guilty, moved to suppress all evidence from the

warrantless search of his office conducted by Padfield and the DLS investigators. In

addition, he sought to suppress all evidence obtained under the two search warrants.

The District court denied this motion, Thorn entered his plea, and the District Court

entered judgment convicting Thorn as charged. This appeal followed. We review a

denial of a motion to suppress de novo, but review any underlying factual

determinations for clear error. United States v. Velazquez-Rivera, 366 F.3d 661, 664

(8th Cir. 2004).

A plurality of the Supreme Court has held that public employers may,

consistent with the Fourth Amendment, conduct workplace searches without a

warrant and without probable cause when there are reasonable grounds to suspect

work-related misconduct. O'Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 725–26 (1987)

(plurality opinion); see also O'Connor, 480 U.S. at 732 (Scalia, J., concurring in

judgment and concluding government searches to investigate work-related

misconduct "do not violate the Fourth Amendment"). A workplace search by a

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government employer implicates an employee's Fourth Amendment rights only if the

employer's conduct infringes upon the employee's reasonable expectations of privacy.

O'Connor, 480 U.S. at 715; see also United States v. Bach, 310 F.3d 1063, 1066 (8th

Cir. 2002) ("[I]n order to find a violation of the Fourth Amendment, there must be a

legitimate expectation of privacy in the area searched and the items seized."), cert.

denied, 538 U.S. 993 (2003). Thorn did not have any legitimate expectation of

privacy with respect to the use and contents of his DCSE computer. He was fully

aware of the computer-use policy, as evidenced by his written acknowledgment of the

limits imposed on his computer-access rights in 2000. The policy specifically bars

certain unauthorized use of DSS computers and further provides that employees have

no personal right of privacy with respect to their use of the agency's computers.

Furthermore, the policy explicitly provides DSS the right to access all of the agency's

computers in order to audit their use. In light of the express limits placed upon his

computer use by the agency's computer-use policy, the District Court correctly

determined that Thorn had no legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of his

office computer. See United States v. Angevine, 281 F.3d 1130, 1134–35 (10th Cir.)

(rejecting claim of reasonable expectation of privacy in data an employee downloaded

from the Internet to a state university's computers when the university had an express

policy that reserved the right to randomly audit Internet use), cert. denied, 537 U.S.

845 (2002); United States v. Simons, 206 F.3d 392, 398 (4th Cir. 2000) (concluding

that government employee had no legitimate expectation of privacy in files

downloaded from the Internet when government employer had express policy limiting

computer usage to official government business and permitted random audits of

computer usage to ensure proper use of government resources); cf. United States v.

Slanina, 283 F.3d 670, 676–77 (5th Cir.) (upholding search but determining that

employee had legitimate expectation of privacy in contents of office computer when

government employer had not disseminated any policy limiting personal use of the

computer and employee's computer was password-protected), vacated on other

grounds by 537 U.S. 802 (2002), on appeal after remand 359 F.3d 356, 358 (5th Cir.

2004) (per curiam) (reaffirming validity of workplace search); Leventhal v. Knapek,

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266 F.3d 64, 73–74 (2d Cir. 2001) (determining that an employee had a legitimate

expectation of privacy in the contents of his office computer but noting the absence

of a policy explicitly limiting the scope of privacy in the computer).

Although any expectation of privacy in the contents of his office computer was

not reasonable, Thorn may have had a legitimate expectation of privacy in his DCSE

office, desk, and filing cabinet. Nonetheless, any such expectation was limited in

scope because other DCSE employees had keys that allowed them to access the office

and the contents of the desk and cabinets. Furthermore, the office, desk, and filing

cabinet were all state-issued property and not Thorn's personal belongings. See

O'Connor, 480 U.S. at 716 (plurality opinion) (recognizing offices, desks and filing

cabinets as part of the workplace that employers may search for evidence of workrelated misconduct); cf. Gossmeyer v. McDonald, 128 F.3d 481, 490 (7th Cir. 1997)

(refusing to find a legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of filing cabinets

kept in a government office despite the fact that they were not state property and, in

fact, were purchased by the office occupant's own funds).

Assuming arguendo that Thorn had some minimal expectation of privacy in his

office, desk and filing cabinet, the searches of these items by Padfield and the DLS

investigators did not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against

unreasonable searches. Under O'Connor, a public employer can investigate workrelated misconduct so long as any search is justified at inception and is reasonably

related in scope to the circumstances that justified it in the first place. 480 U.S. at

726. A search is justified at inception "when there are reasonable grounds for

suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the employee is guilty of workrelated misconduct." Id. The scope of a search is reasonable when the measures

adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and are not

unnecessarily intrusive. Id.

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Because Thorn had no legitimate expectation of privacy with respect to his use

of his office computer, the initial remote search of this computer did not violate the

Fourth Amendment. DCSE officials initially entered Thorn's office merely to secure

his computer tower for a more thorough examination of its contents; they did not

search other areas of the office until Thorn instructed Padfield to retrieve the tax

forms from his desk. In directing Padfield to secure these documents, Thorn

consented to Padfield's initial search of the desk. While searching for the forms,

Padfield discovered computer-generated pornographic stories and pictures throughout

the desk; this discovery allowed DCSE to expand the scope of the investigation to

include places and items where computer-generated pornographic materials could be

stored, such as on floppy disks. See, e.g., Leventhal, 266 F.3d at 76–77 (recognizing

that evidence of misconduct uncovered by an initial workplace search may provide

justification for an expanded investigation of the misconduct). Padfield was thus

justified in seizing Thorn's floppy disks from the desk in order to determine if they

contained pornography. See Slanina, 283 F.3d at 679–80 (concluding that

government employer was justified under O'Connor in conducting a full search of

computer hard drive and zip disks for further evidence of misconduct once employer

had determined employee had accessed pornographic materials with the computer).

 The further examination of the contents of the office and the floppy disks by DLS

investigators was reasonable in light of DCSE's decision to terminate Thorn because

the investigators were merely cataloguing evidence of Thorn's work-related

misconduct in order to document the reasons for the termination in the event of legal

action by Thorn. Immediately upon discovering evidence of possible child

pornography, the investigators halted their inventory and notified local lawenforcement officials.

At no time did the agency's investigation into Thorn's work-related misconduct

devolve into a de facto criminal investigation that should have been conducted

pursuant to a warrant. As evidence of widespread misconduct surfaced, through the

audit of Thorn's computer use and through the accidental discovery of pornographic

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materials during the retrieval of Thorn's tax forms, DCSE had every right to

investigate the scope of this misconduct. After the computer-use audit and consent

search of the desk, the permissible scope of the search for evidence of Thorn's workrelated misconduct reasonably included Thorn's office, desk, and filing cabinet. The

various warrantless searches conducted by DCSE and DLS officials did not violate

the Fourth Amendment. The District Court therefore properly refused to suppress

evidence discovered during these searches. This evidence provided sufficient

probable cause for the February search warrant, which permitted the search for and

seizure of contraband, photographs, printed materials and electronic storage media

by the Joplin Police Department. The District Court properly refused to suppress

evidence discovered in the execution of this warrant as well.

The March 15 search warrant was a supplemental warrant that Lieutenant

Francis sought before examining the contents of computer media seized during the

execution of the February warrant. The government conceded to the Magistrate

Judge that this warrant was fatally deficient on its face because it failed to set forth

the factual basis for probable cause to believe that child pornography would be

discovered in the computer media at issue. Nonetheless, evidence discovered from

the police search of the floppy disks need not be suppressed because the March

warrant was surplusage and was not required to permit law enforcement officials to

examine the contents of the seized computer media. The February warrant, which

explicitly authorized the search and seizure of electronic storage media containing

images of minors involved in sexual acts, was sufficient to provide the authority to

examine the contents of the various computer-related media. See, e.g., United States

v. Upham, 168 F.3d 532, 536 (1st Cir.) ("The warrant explicitly authorized the seizure

of both the computer plus diskettes and the unlawful images. The images . . . were

'inside' the computer or diskettes. The extraction of unlawful images from within the

computer and diskettes was therefore contemplated by the warrant."), cert. denied,

527 U.S. 1011 (1999); cf. United States v. Wright, 704 F.2d 420, 422 (8th Cir. 1983)

(per curiam) (holding that warrant permitting search for drugs within a house

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permitted the search of a safe within the house that might reasonably have contained

drugs). The District Court properly refused to suppress evidence from the

examination of the contents of the various floppy disks taken from Thorn's office.

The District Court's decision to deny Thorn's motion to suppress, leading to the

acceptance of his conditional plea of guilty and the imposition of the resulting

conviction, is affirmed.

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