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Parties Involved:
Richard C. McGlothlin
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted July 28, 2010

Decided July 28, 2010

Before

WILLIAM J. BAUER, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge

No. 10‐1278

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

RICHARD C. McGLOTHLIN,

Defendant‐Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 09‐cr‐10069‐001

Joe Billy McDade,

Judge.

O R D E R

Local police in Bloomington, Illinois, responded to a mother’s call that her neighbor,

Richard McGlothlin, had been taking photos of her son with a cell phone and masturbating

as the boy played on a trampoline in the family’s backyard.  A search of McGlothlin’s phone

did not turn up any photos of his neighbor, but it did uncover troubling photos of partially

nude children and what was later identified as the erect penis of a fifteen‐year‐old boy.

After the district court denied his motion to suppress the photos, McGlothlin entered a

conditional guilty plea to two counts of producing child pornography, and the district court

sentenced him to concurrent terms of 180 months’ imprisonment, the statutory minimum

for each count.  See 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), (e).  McGlothlin filed a notice of appeal, but his

appointed lawyer seeks to withdraw under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), because

he cannot identify any nonfrivolous argument to pursue.  McGlothlin has not opposed

counsel’s motion.  See CIR. R. 51(b).  We confine our review to the potential issues identified

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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in counsel’s facially adequate brief. See United States v. Schuh, 289 F.3d 968, 973‐74 (7th Cir.

2002).

McGlothlin has told counsel that he does not want his guilty pleas vacated, so

counsel properly omits any discussion of the adequacy of the plea colloquy or the

voluntariness of the pleas.  See United States v. Knox, 287 F.3d 667, 670‐72 (7th Cir. 2002).

Counsel first considers whether McGlothlin could challenge the district court’s

denial of his motion to suppress the photos on his cell phone.  Bloomington police officer

Robert Raycraft testified at the suppression hearing that, after speaking to McGlothlin’s

neighbor, he approached McGlothlin, who was standing on the lawn in front of his home,

and asked if he had been masturbating or taking photos of the boy next door.  McGlothlin

insisted that he had only been checking his phone messages and getting cigarettes out of his

pocket, and when Raycraft asked him if he would find photos of the neighbor on his phone,

he replied, “Not that neighbor.”  When Raycraft asked if he could check the phone for

himself, McGlothlin said, “Sure.”  On the phone Raycraft first found photos of DVD covers;

he did not specify what was on them and described them only as “odd” but not “alarming.”

As he continued scrolling through the photos, he saw images of a different young boy

jumping on a trampoline, climbing a tree, and playing on a bed.  Many of those photos

focused on the boy’s clothed buttocks and genital area.  McGlothlin, who is 36, told Raycraft

that the boy was a “friend” from the neighborhood and admitted that the boy’s parents

probably were unaware that he had been photographing their son.  Raycraft also saw

photos of an infant with exposed genitalia lying on a hospital bed, young children in

various states of undress playing near a lake, and a young girl standing at a bathroom sink

with her breasts exposed.  Finally, he saw a series of shots taken in a bathroom depicting the

subject’s erect penis and bare buttocks, although he could not tell whether the subject was

an adolescent or adult.  Raycraft then seized the phone to prevent McGlothlin from deleting

the photos, but when McGlothlin’s ride to church arrived, Raycraft told him he was free to

go.  Raycraft gave McGlothlin’s phone to Bloomington detective William Lynn for forensic

investigation, and during a later interview, McGlothlin confessed to Lynn that he had been

having sex regularly in his church bathroom with a fifteen‐year‐old boy and it was that boy

whose erect penis was captured in six of the photos on his phone.  

In arguing for suppression, McGlothlin asserted that the warrantless seizure of the

phone had lacked probable cause and that any consent he gave was involuntary because of

his low mental functioning.  The district court concluded that McGlothlin had voluntarily

consented to Officer Raycraft’s request to search the cell phone for photos of the neighbor

and that, once Raycraft saw the saved photos, he had probable cause to believe that

McGlothlin possessed child pornography and thus to seize the phone.

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The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, but a

warrantless, consensual search does not run afoul of the Constitution.  United States v. Grap,

403 F.3d 439, 443 (7th Cir. 2005).  We would review for clear error the district court’s factual

finding that McGlothlin voluntarily consented to the search of his cell phone, and to

evaluate voluntariness we would look at the totality of the circumstances, including

(1) McGlothlin’s age, education, and intelligence; (2) whether he was advised of his

constitutional rights; (3) the length of detention prior to consent; (4) whether he consented

immediately or only upon repeated requests for consent; (5) whether police used physical

coercion; and (6) whether McGlothlin was in custody.  See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S.

218, 248‐49 (1973); United States v. Biggs, 491 F.3d 616, 622 (7th Cir. 2007).  

We would not find clear error in the district court’s conclusion that McGlothlin freely

gave Officer Raycraft permission to view the photos on his cell phone.  Although

McGlothlin had not been advised of his right to refuse consent, he was not in custody when

Raycraft sought permission to search his phone, and Raycraft did not physically or verbally

coerce him into submission.  Rather, the officer testified that he asked just once if he could

search the phone’s photo bank, and McGlothlin responded, “Sure,” and handed it over.

And although McGlothlin solicited testimony from his aunt that he has “slow” mental

functioning, below‐average intelligence does not automatically render involuntary the

waiver of a constitutional right.  See Garner v. Mitchell, 557 F.3d 257, 264‐65 (6th Cir. 2009)

(collecting cases); Henderson v. DeTella, 97 F.3d 942, 948‐49 (7th Cir. 1996).  Raycraft testified

that McGlothlin gave no sign that he did not understand what was happening and, indeed,

that his initial responses to Raycraft’s questions—that he was only checking messages on his

phone and getting cigarettes from his pants, and that his phone did not contain photos of

“that neighbor”—were more consistent with a person trying to avoid getting caught than

with a person incapable of understanding what was happening.  See United States v. Turner,

157 F.3d 552, 555 (8th Cir. 1998).  

Nor would we find error in the district court’s conclusion that the seizure of

McGlothlin’s cell phone was permissible.  Under the plain‐view doctrine, an officer may

seize evidence without a warrant when he is lawfully present and has a lawful right of

access to the item, and the item’s incriminating nature is “immediately apparent.”  Horton v.

California, 496 U.S. 128, 136‐37 (1990); Gentry v. Sevier, 597 F.3d 838, 849 (7th Cir. 2010).

There is no question that Officer Raycraft was lawfully present on McGlothlin’s front lawn

to investigate the neighbor’s complaint, and, as explained above, he lawfully browsed

through McGlothlin’s cell phone photos only after receiving permission.  To satisfy the third

element, Raycraft needed probable cause to believe that the cell phone was “linked to

criminal activity.”  United States v. Cellitti, 387 F.3d 618, 624 (7th Cir. 2004).  The federal

definition of child pornography includes the depiction of a “lascivious exhibition of the

genitals or pubic area” of a minor, 18 U.S.C. § 2256(8), (2), and the slightly broader

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definition under Illinois law includes the depiction of “a lewd exhibition of the unclothed or

transparently clothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if such person is female, a fully or

partially developed breast of the child,” 720 ILCS 5/11‐20.1(a)(1)(vii).  The majority of the

photos on McGlothlin’s phone, although troubling, could not reasonably be characterized as

child pornography because the required element of lasciviousness or lewdness was absent.

See United States v. Griesbach, 540 F.3d 654, 656 (7th Cir. 2008); People v. Lamborn, 708 N.E.2d

350, 353 (Ill. 1999). But the photos of the erect penis fit the bill, and, although Raycraft could

not tell with certainty that the photo’s subject was a minor, the context gave him probable

cause to believe it was.  McGlothlin’s phone contained dozens of photos of a young boy,

and, although the boy was clothed and engaged in innocent activity, the photos were

focused on his buttocks and genital region, suggesting McGlothlin’s sexual interest in the

boy.  That, combined with the other photos of young children in various states of undress

and the neighbor’s complaint that McGlothlin had been masturbating while photographing

her son, gave Raycraft reason to believe that all of McGlothlin’s subjects were minors.  See

Cellitti, 387 F.3d at 624 (collecting cases for proposition that officers may have probable

cause to seize evidence that is not inherently illegal when context casts it in suspicious

light). Because Raycraft had reason to believe that McGlothlin’s cell phone was linked, at

the very least, to possession of child pornography, we agree with counsel that it would be

frivolous to challenge the district court’s conclusion that the phone was properly seized.

Counsel also considers whether McGlothlin could challenge the reasonableness of

his sentence.  At sentencing the district court properly calculated a guidelines imprisonment

range of 292 to 360 months but concluded that the statutory minimum of 180 months’

imprisonment, when combined with a lifetime of supervised release, was sufficient to serve

the purposes of sentencing.  As counsel correctly points out, absent a government motion to

reduce the sentence based on substantial assistance, see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e), the district court

was constrained from sentencing McGlothlin to anything less than 180 months’

imprisonment, see United States v. Forman, 553 F.3d 585, 588 (7th Cir. 2009) (per curiam).

And with respect to lifetime supervision, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k) authorizes a term of

supervised release of five years to life for a defendant convicted of producing child

pornography, and the sentencing guidelines recommend that district courts impose the

maximum term, see U.S.S.G. § 5D1.2(b)(2) (policy statement) & cmt. 1; United States v.

Kennedy, 499 F.3d 547, 553 (6th Cir. 2007); United States v. Planck, 493 F.3d 501, 505 (5th Cir.

2007).  McGlothlin did not object to lifetime supervision and, in fact, requested that the

district court impose the statutory minimum prison sentence and a lifetime of supervised

release.  In accepting that request, the district court explained that a 15‐year sentence

supplemented by the “watchful eye” of lifetime supervision was sufficient punishment for

McGlothlin, who, according to the court, suffers from an “illness” but is otherwise

predisposed to “lawfulness and leading a good life.”  Because the district court imposed the

statutory minimum prison sentence and properly considered the factors under § 3553(a) in

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fashioning McGlothlin’s term of supervision, we agree with counsel that any challenge to

the sentence would be frivolous.  

Counsel’s motion to withdraw is GRANTED, and the appeal is DISMISSED.

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