Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-03738/USCOURTS-ca8-05-03738-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Mark T. Davis
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Paul A. Magnuson, United States District Judge for the District

of Minnesota, sitting by designation.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-3738

___________

United States of America, *

 *

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the 

* Western District of Missouri.

Mark T. Davis, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: March 16, 2006 

Filed: July 11, 2006

___________

Before ARNOLD and SMITH, Circuit Judges, and MAGNUSON,1

 District Judge.

___________

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

Mark Davis pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography. See 18 U.S.C.

§ 2252(a)(2). At sentencing, Mr. Davis moved to withdraw his plea. The district

court denied the motion, holding that there was no fair and just reason for a

withdrawal. On appeal, Mr. Davis challenges that ruling as well as a condition of

supervised release forbidding him from having any unsupervised contact with minors.

For reasons that follow, we affirm Mr. Davis's conviction but modify the condition of

supervised release.

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I.

As part of an investigation into the online distribution of child pornography,

FBI agents came across what is known as a Yahoo! Group that was named

"secret_girlzz." In that group, the agents found several images of child pornography

that had been uploaded from a personal computer by a person using the user ID

"newone31313." Yahoo! company records revealed that this user ID belonged to

Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis admitted to agents that he had participated in Yahoo! Groups

and had received child pornography via email. Agents searched various computer

hard drives that Mr. Davis owned and found sexually explicit images of minors on

them. 

At the hearing at which Mr. Davis pleaded guilty, he was represented by Ronald

Hoskins, an attorney whom he had retained several months earlier. During the plea

colloquy, the district court asked Mr. Davis whether he was satisfied with

Mr. Hoskins's performance as his attorney. Mr. Davis acknowledged that Mr. Hoskins

had followed his instructions, returned his telephone calls, and investigated the

circumstances of his case; he concluded by saying that he had no complaints about

Mr. Hoskins's services. The district court accepted Mr. Davis's plea of guilty.

And then Mr. Hoskins disappeared. The probation office tried to send him a

copy of the pre-sentence report but received no reply, and Mr. Davis complained that

he had not heard from his attorney. The court scheduled a hearing to address the

difficulty, and when Mr. Hoskins failed to show up, the court appointed an attorney

from the Federal Public Defender's office in his place.

II.

At the beginning of the sentencing hearing, Mr. Davis sought to withdraw his

guilty plea so that he could challenge the admissibility of the statements and evidence

that the prosecution said that it would have introduced against him at trial. The

district court denied Mr. Davis's request. Mr. Davis argues for the first time on appeal

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that the district court erred in doing so because Mr. Hoskins's disappearance, as well

as his failure to seek suppression of the statements and evidence against Mr. Davis,

amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel.

A district court may permit a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea before he or

she is sentenced if the defendant shows a fair and just reason for the withdrawal. Fed.

R. Crim. P. 11(d)(2)(B). Where, as here, a district court determines that there is no

fair and just reason for withdrawing the plea, the motion is denied. United States v.

Austin, 413 F.3d 856, 857 (8th Cir. 2005). If the court concludes that a fair and just

reason does exist for withdrawal, it will inquire further into the particular

circumstances before deciding whether to grant the motion. See United States v.

Nichols, 986 F.2d 1199, 1201 (8th Cir. 1993). We generally review the denial of a

motion to withdraw a guilty plea for an abuse of discretion. Austin, 413 F.3d at 857.

But we note that ineffective-assistance-of counsel claims, such as the one that

Mr. Davis presents, are "generally not a basis for direct appeal and instead should be

properly raised in a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 action." United States v. Soriano-Hernandez,

310 F.3d 1099, 1105 (8th Cir. 2002). We consider such arguments on direct appeal

only where the record has been fully developed, where counsel's ineffectiveness is

readily apparent, or where to delay consideration of the claim would lead to a plain

miscarriage of justice. United States v. Cook, 356 F.3d 913, 919-20 (8th Cir. 2004).

No such exceptional circumstances exist here. The record on this issue is not

developed at all. As to whether there is an apparent sixth-amendment violation, we

fail to see how Mr. Hoskins's disappearance necessarily affected the quality of the

representation that he did provide. We therefore conclude that this issue is more

properly raised in a separate motion under § 2255. United States v. Cain, 134 F.3d

1345, 1352 (8th Cir. 1998).

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III.

Mr. Davis also challenges a special condition of his supervised release that bars

him from having any unsupervised contact with his own daughter. The district court

imposed a term of three years' supervised release on Mr. Davis, during which time he

cannot "associate or have any [unsupervised] contact ... with persons/females/males

under the age of 18." Any supervised contact that he has with such minors must be

"in the presence of a responsible adult who is aware of the nature of the defendant's

background and current offense and who has been approved by the Probation Office."

Because Mr. Davis did not make a timely objection to the condition, we review

it for plain error. United States v. Ristine, 335 F.3d 692, 694 (8th Cir. 2003). Plain

error exists if the district court deviates from a legal rule, the error is clear under

current law, and the error affects substantial rights. Id. In most cases, for an error to

affect substantial rights it must affect the outcome of the proceedings. United States

v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734 (1993). We will correct such errors when they

" 'seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.' "

Id. at 736 (quoting United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160 (1936)).

While the district court enjoys broad discretion in setting special conditions of

supervised release, United States v. Andis, 333 F.3d 886, 893 (8th Cir. 2003) (en

banc), cert. denied, 542 U.S. 997 (2003), those conditions must meet the requirements

of 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d). Section 3583(d) first requires that the condition be

"reasonably related" to the nature and characteristics of the offense and the defendant,

the deterrence of criminal conduct, the protection of the public from any further

crimes of the defendant, and the defendant's correctional needs. 18 U.S.C.

§§ 3583(d)(1), 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), (a)(2)(D); United States v. Crume,

422 F.3d 728, 732-33 (8th Cir. 2005). Second, the condition must not involve any

"greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary" to advance deterrence,

protect the public from further crimes by the defendant, and promote the defendant's

correctional needs. 18 U.S.C. §§ 3583(d)(2), 3553(a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), (a)(2)(D).

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Finally, the condition must be consistent with any pertinent policy statements that the

sentencing commission has issued. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(3). 

Mr. Davis argues that because there is no evidence that he has abused a child,

the condition interferes with his parental rights to a greater degree than is reasonably

necessary. The relationship between a parent and child is a fundamental liberty

interest protected by the due process clause. Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246, 255

(1978); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399-401 (1923). Where a condition of

supervised release would impose "sweeping restrictions on important constitutional

rights," we review the condition more closely. Crume, 422 F.3d at 733.

The existence of a constitutionally protected liberty interest, however, does not

render impermissible any condition that would interfere with the parent-child

relationship. For instance, we have upheld conditions requiring defendants to ask for

and receive the permission of their probation officer before contacting their minor

children. See, e.g., United States v. Mark, 425 F.3d 505, 507-08 (8th Cir. 2005);

Crume, 422 F.3d at 733-34. But a court may not categorically impose such a

condition in every child pornography case that comes before it; since the relevant

statutory and constitutional considerations look to whether the condition is more

restrictive than what is needed to satisfy the governmental interest in a specific case,

the district court must decide whether to impose such a condition based on specific

facts. 

We conclude that the application of the condition at issue to Mr. Davis's own

child amounts to plain error. Federal law requires the district courts to consider the

"nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the

defendant" when crafting a special condition of supervised release. See 18 U.S.C

§§ 3553(a)(1), 3583(d)(1); cf. United States v. Heidebur, 417 F.3d 1002, 1004-05 (8th

Cir. 2005). That inquiry must take place on an individualized basis; a court may not

impose a special condition on all those found guilty of a particular offense. The

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district court's failure to look at the specific facts at hand when gauging the propriety

of the condition was therefore clear error. 

We believe that such an individualized analysis would have affected the

outcome of the proceeding. There is no evidence in the record that Mr. Davis has ever

sexually abused a child or that he would try to abuse his daughter once released from

prison. Because no such evidence exists, a condition of supervised release that limits

Mr. Davis's access to his daughter is not reasonably necessary either to protect

Mr. Davis's daughter or to further his rehabilitation. The government points out that

in other cases we have upheld conditions similar to the one at issue here. In each of

those cases, however, there were additional facts that justified the condition. In

Crume, 422 F.3d at 734, the defendant had fathered his daughter by impregnating an

underage girl; in Heidebur, 417 F.3d at 1003, 1005, the defendant had taken sexually

explicit pictures of his stepdaughter. Nothing similar appears in the present record.

Because the condition at issue here would interfere with Mr. Davis's constitutional

liberty interest in raising his own child, the government may circumscribe that

relationship only if it shows that the condition is no more restrictive than what is

reasonably necessary; here, it failed to meet that burden. 

Lastly, we believe that not to correct the error at hand would undermine the

fairness and integrity of our judicial proceedings. Judges have broad discretion to

tailor conditions of supervised release because they are the ones who can best fit

conditions to the facts of a specific case. The public expects the courts to exercise that

discretion, not impose a special condition as a matter of course. We therefore

conclude that the district court erred in not allowing Mr. Davis to have unsupervised

contact with his own children during his term of supervised release.

IV.

We affirm Mr. Davis's conviction, dismiss without prejudice his ineffectiveassistance-of-counsel claim, and remand to the district court with instructions to

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amend Mr. Davis's conditions of supervised release to state that the condition

prohibiting him from associating with or having unsupervised contact with minor

children has no application to his own children.

SMITH, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I concur in the majority's affirmance of Mr. Davis's conviction and dismissal

of his ineffective assistance of counsel claim. However, I respectfully dissent from

the majority's holding that the district court's supervised release condition prohibiting

unsupervised contact with minor children, including his own children, constituted

plain error. 

Before a district court can be reversed for plain error the appellant must show

"(1) error, (2) that is plain, and (3) that affects substantial rights." Johnson v. United

States, 520 U.S. 461, 467 (1997) (internal quotations, alteration, and citation omitted).

In addition, the error must seriously affect "the fairness, integrity, or public reputation

of judicial proceedings." Id. (internal quotations and citations omitted). Under our

existing circuit precedent, it is not entirely clear whether Mr. Davis has shown any

error, much less error that is "plain."

We have previously upheld similar restrictions in child pornography cases. In

United States v. Mark, 425 F.3d 505, 508 (8th Cir. 2005), the defendant, convicted of

possessing child pornography, challenged a special condition prohibiting him from

having any contact with, or residing with, any children under 18 years of age,

including his own children, unless the probation officer gives prior approval in

writing. The defendant argued that nothing in the record indicated that he was a

danger to children. Id. This court rejected the defendant's argument, stating that

"[r]equiring [the defendant] to obtain prior approval is a reasonable mechanism to

promote compliance and to ensure that [the defendant's] contact with minors is

reasonably limited to appropriate situations. [The defendant] has a history of violating

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conditions of release . . . and the record reflects that . . . [the defendant] engaged in

sexual exploration with a female family member who was a minor." Id. While Davis

has no such history, its absence should not render imposition of the special condition

plainly erroneous.

Similarly, we rejected the argument of a defendant—convicted of knowingly

receiving child pornography and knowingly possessing child pornography—that the

special condition prohibiting him from "contact with children under the age of

eighteen without the written consent of his probation officer" was an "unnecessary

deprivation of his liberty interest in having contact with his own children." United

States v. Crume, 422 F.3d 728, 734 (8th Cir. 2005). In upholding the condition, we

stated:

But children, including those of [the defendant], are members of the

public that the terms of supervised release seek to protect. In fact, the

daughter with whom he desires contact is the child conceived as the

result of his impregnating a fourteen-year-old girl. The presentence

investigation report reflects that this now-adult woman remains fearful

of [the defendant] and worries that he may try to molest her daughter. 

The challenged condition, moreover, does not completely prohibit [the

defendant] from interacting with his children. He may have contact with

children, including his own, with the written consent of his probation

officer. We also note that we do not agree with the defendant that this

provision prohibits him from accepting a letter written to him by one of

his children. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion

by forbidding [the defendant] from having contact with children under

the age of eighteen absent written consent.

Id; see also United States v. Ristine, 335 F.3d 692, 696 (8th Cir. 2003) (upholding a

special condition that barred the defendant, who was convicted of possessing child

pornography, from going to places where minor children congregate without prior

approval from his probation officer because the purpose of the condition was to limit

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the defendant's access to children and the restriction should be read to prohibit the

defendant's presence only at places where minor children congregate); United States

v. Heidebur, 417 F.3d 1002, 1004 (8th Cir. 2005) (upholding a special condition that

prohibited the defendant from contact with children under the age of 18 unless the

probation officer gave prior written permission because the deprivation of liberty was

not greater than that which is reasonably necessary under the circumstances,

considering the defendant was convicted of conduct involving the sexual exploitation

of a minor); United States v. Vick, 421 F.3d 794 (8th Cir. 2005) (upholding a

supervised release condition that prohibited the defendant, who was convicted of

possessing child pornography, from having contact with children under the age of 18,

including his daughter, unless he received prior written approval from his probation

officer because the condition was tailored to the defendant's "extensive history with

minors, was reasonably related to the nature of seriousness of the offense, and was

needed to deter [the defendant] and protect the public").

Other recent decisions have also approved "'virtually identical supervised

release conditions'" for defendants who have pleaded guilty to receiving child

pornography. See United States v. Levering, 441 F.3d 566, 569 (8th Cir. 2006)

(quoting United States v. Mickelson, 433 F.3d 1050, 1057 (8th Cir. 2006)). In

Mickelson, the defendant pleaded guilty to receiving child pornography, admitting

that some of the images he had received "depicted children under the age of 12 and

sadistic or masochistic violence." Id. at 1051. The defendant, however, challenged

a special condition that "require[d] him to have no contact with anyone under the age

of 18 without the express written permission of the probation office" as being

"unnecessary and unreasonable given the circumstances of his case, including his

close relationship with his grandchildren." Id. at 1056. In rejecting the defendant's

argument, we held: 

[R]equiring prior approval before a convicted sex offender has contact

with minors is a reasonable means of ensuring that such contact remains

appropriate. The district court’s refusal to incorporate a blanket

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exception for [defendant’s] grandchildren or other family members was

not unreasonable given the fact that most sexual abuse of children takes

place at the hands of family members or friends. Moreover, [defendant]

has not been forbidden from seeing his grandchildren or any other family

member; he is merely required to seek prior permission. If such

permission is arbitrarily or unfairly denied, he is free to seek relief from

the district court under § 3583(e). This arrangement does not constitute

an abuse of discretion. 

Id. at 1057 (internal citations omitted). 

Considering our case law on special conditions restricting a defendant's contact

with children when the defendant pleads guilty to receiving child pornography, I

conclude that in the absence of a timely objection, imposition of the supervised release

provision in question does not constitute plain error. First, as noted in Mickelson, it

was not unreasonable for the district court to include Davis's daughter in its supervised

release condition, considering his daughter is entitled to just as much protection as

other minors. Second, Davis is not barred from seeing his daughter; instead, the

condition, which is subject to later modification, limits his visits to those with

supervision. Finally, as Mickelson indicates, proof that Davis personally inflicted

child sexual abuse is not necessary to support restrictions on access to children; Davis,

like the defendant in Mickelson, possessed illegal child pornography, including short

movies depicting a variety of oral and anal sexual acts, several images depicting

sexual bondage with children, and images depicting victims under the age of 12. For

these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

______________________________

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