Opinion ID: 4561170
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: Croghan argues that insufficient evidence supported the jury’s verdict convicting him of the knowing receipt of child pornography, as opposed to the lesser included offense of knowing access of child pornography. While Croghan concedes that sufficient evidence exists that he knowingly accessed child pornography, he argues there was no evidence that he knowingly received child pornography. According to Croghan, the district court conflated the concepts of access and receipt such that there is no difference between the two separate crimes. Three separate crimes intersect in this case: possession of child pornography, receipt of child pornography, and access of child pornography. See 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2), (a)(5)(B). All three offenses require the defendant to have acted “knowingly.” See id. “This element of scienter carries critical importance in the internet context given spam and the prevalence and sophistication of some computer viruses and hackers that can prey upon innocent computer users.” United States v. Pruitt, 638 F.3d 763, 766 (11th Cir. 2011) (per curiam). The statutes’ requirement that the defendant “knowingly” access, possess, or receive child pornography “eliminates the possibility that an unwitting downloader of child pornography will trigger liability under the statutes.” United States v. Woods, 684 F.3d 1045, 1060 (11th Cir. 2012) (per curiam). “[T]he scienter requirement of [§ 2252A(a)] imposes an unforgiving standard on the government.” United States v. Tagg, 886 F.3d 579, 589 (6th Cir. 2018). As the Fifth Circuit has observed, “[i]t can be difficult to prove the requisite knowing-receipt [of child pornography] because this requires intricate—and sometimes impossible—tracing and analysis of computer files unless . . . the Government happened to be operating undercover on the same peer-to-peer, internet-file-sharing network as defendant.” United States v. Ross, 948 F.3d 243, 247 (5th Cir. 2020) (emphasis added). -20- Section 2252A(a)(5)(B) of 18 U.S.C. “criminalizes the knowing possession of child pornography.” United States v. Manning, 738 F.3d 937, 945 (8th Cir. 2014). The elements of the offense are “the (1) knowing possession of . . . , (2) any print material, film, or computer media, (3) containing an image of child pornography.” United States v. Brune, 767 F.3d 1009, 1019 (10th Cir. 2014). Because “[t]he statute does not define . . . possession[,] . . . courts have given th[e] term[] [its] plain meaning.” United States v. Ramos, 685 F.3d 120, 131 (2d Cir. 2012). “‘Possession’ is ‘[t]he fact of having or holding property in one’s power; the exercise of dominion over property.’” United States v. Romm, 455 F.3d 990, 999 (9th Cir. 2006) (alteration in original) (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 1183 (7th ed. 1999)). “[T]o establish possession, the government must prove a sufficient connection between the defendant and the contraband to support the inference that the defendant exercised dominion and control over it.” Id. (cleaned up). “[C]onstructive possession of [child pornography] is established when a person has ownership, dominion or control over the [pornographic material] itself, or dominion over the premises in which the [pornographic material] is concealed.” United States v. Acosta, 619 F.3d 956, 961 (8th Cir. 2010) (third and fourth alterations in original) (quoting United States v. Kain, 589 F.3d 945, 950 (8th Cir. 2009)). “Congress intended the ‘possessing’ actus reus to apply to someone who ‘intentionally searched for images of child pornography, found them, and knowingly accepted them onto his computer,’ even if that acceptance was merely temporary.” Tagg, 886 F.3d at 588 (quoting Ramos, 685 F.3d at 132). Although Croghan was not charged with knowing possession of child pornography, the elements of that offense are relevant to the crime for which he was convicted—receipt of child pornography. See 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2). Section 2252A(a)(2) makes it unlawful “to ‘knowingly receive[]’ ‘any child pornography’ that has been transported in interstate commerce ‘by any means, including by computer.’” Manning, 738 F.3d at 945 (alteration in original) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2)). “The statute does not define receipt”; therefore, we afford it its ordinary meaning. -21- Ramos, 685 F.3d at 131. “The ordinary meaning of ‘receive’ is ‘to knowingly accept’; ‘to take possession or delivery of’; or ‘to take in through the mind or senses.’” Pruitt, 638 F.3d at 766 (emphasis added) (quoting Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary: Unabridged 1894 (1993)). “The convictions for receipt and possession of child pornography turn on essentially the same requirements and evidence . . . .” United States v. Worthey, 716 F.3d 1107, 1113 (8th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation omitted) (applying 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2) and (a)(4)(B)).7 Receiving child pornography “generally require[s] a knowing acceptance or taking possession of the prohibited item.” United States v. Schales, 546 F.3d 965, 978 (9th Cir. 2008) (cleaned up), cited with approval in Muhlenbruch, 634 F.3d at 1003. As a result, we have held that “possession of child pornography is a lesser included offense of receiving child pornography.” Muhlenbruch, 634 F.3d at 1003. “[P]roof of receiving child pornography under § 2252[A](a)(2) necessarily includes proof of illegal possession of child pornography under § 2252[A](a)([5])(B) . . . .” Id. (applying 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2) and (a)(4)(B)).8 7 See United States v. Muhlenbruch, 634 F.3d 987, 1003 n.6 (8th Cir. 2011) (“As the Third Circuit explained in United States v. Miller, 527 F.3d 54, 64 n.10 (3d Cir. 2008), ‘[t]he jurisprudence concerning the receipt and possession provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 2252 and the comparable provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A often converges’ and ‘[t]hese statutory provisions have been characterized as materially identical.’” (alterations in original)). 8 While “all receivers are possessors[,] . . . not all possessors are receivers.” United States v. Watzman, 486 F.3d 1004, 1010 (7th Cir. 2007) (emphasis added); see also Miller, 527 F.3d at 63 (“The evidence required to establish the intent-element of § 2252A(a)(2) may be greater than that required to establish the intent-element of § 2252A(a)(5)(B) because, while a person who ‘knowingly receives’ child pornography will necessarily ‘knowingly possess’ child pornography, the obverse is not the case.”). -22- “This Court has not yet [expressly] decided whether viewing images stored in temporary internet files is sufficient to establish knowing receipt. . . of child pornography.” Ramos, 685 F.3d at 131 (emphasis added).9 However, we have recognized that [t]he presence of child pornography in temporary internet and orphan files on a computer’s hard drive is evidence of prior possession of that [A] person who seeks out only adult pornography, but without his knowledge is sent a mix of adult and child pornography, will not have violated that statutory provision. That same person, however, could be in violation of the possession provision . . . if he or she decides to retain that material, thereby knowingly possessing it. United States v. Myers, 355 F.3d 1040, 1042 (7th Cir. 2004). In addition, “a person who created an image [of child pornography] or found it in trash could ‘possess’ child pornography without ever receiving it.” Watzman, 486 F.3d at 1009 (citing United States v. Malik, 385 F.3d 758, 759 (7th Cir. 2004)). 9 United States v. Stulock, 308 F.3d 922 (8th Cir. 2002), did not hold otherwise. Stulock involved our review of the defendant’s sentence after he was convicted for knowingly receiving child pornography. Id. at 923–24. In reciting the procedural history of the case, we noted in addition to the receipt charge, a bench trial was held on the charge of knowingly possessing child pornography, but that the district court acquitted the defendant of the charge. Id. at 925. “The district court explained that one cannot be guilty of possession for simply having viewed an image on a web site, thereby causing the image to be automatically stored in the browser’s cache, without having purposely saved or downloaded the image.” Id. We were not asked to address the legal correctness of the district court’s conclusion; therefore, the decision cannot be read as our holding that viewing an image on a website is insufficient to constitute the knowing possession of child pornography. Nor can our cases citing Stulock be read to reach such a holding. See Worthey, 716 F.3d at 1113 (merely pointing out that the government adduced more evidence than just images found in a browser cache (as in Stulock) to sustain the defendant’s convictions for receiving and possessing child pornography). -23- pornography, though of course it is not conclusive evidence of knowing possession and control of the images, just as mere presence in a car from which the police recover contraband does not, without more, establish actual or constructi[ve] possession of the contraband by a passenger. Kain, 589 F.3d at 950 (finding sufficient evidence of knowing possession where defendant’s browsing history showed repeated accessing of child pornography websites); see also United States v. Huyck, 849 F.3d 432, 443 (8th Cir. 2017) (“[T]hough the ninety-five thumbnail images on the Hitachi hard drive were not viewable without special software, they nonetheless constituted evidence of prior possession of child pornography.”). And, our sister circuits “have upheld child pornography receipt and possession convictions where a defendant viewed child pornography stored in temporary internet files on a computer.” Ramos, 685 F.3d at 131 (citing Pruitt, 638 F.3d at 766–67; Kain, 589 F.3d at 948–50; Romm, 455 F.3d at 998, 1002; United States v. Bass, 411 F.3d 1198, 1201–02 (10th Cir. 2005)). “A person ‘knowingly receives’ child pornography under 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2) when he intentionally views, acquires, or accepts child pornography on a computer from an outside source.” Pruitt, 638 F.3d at 766 (emphasis added). “[A]n intentional viewer of child-pornography images sent to his computer may be convicted whether or not, for example, he acts to save the images to a hard drive, to edit them, or otherwise to exert more control over them.” Id. (citing Romm, 455 F.3d at 998 (finding sufficient for “receiv[ing]” under § 2252A that “Romm exercised dominion and control over the images in his cache by enlarging them on his screen, and saving them there for five minutes before deleting them”)). “Evidence that a person has sought out—searched for—child pornography on the internet and has a computer containing child-pornography images—whether in the hard drive, cache, or unallocated spaces—can count as circumstantial evidence that a person has ‘knowingly receive[d]’ child pornography.” Id. (alteration in original); see also id. at 767 (upholding defendant’s conviction where “investigators found a record of -24- internet searches using terms related to child pornography . . . and a record of visits to websites with a child-pornography connection”). The Second Circuit has held that sufficient evidence supported a defendant’s conviction for knowingly receiving and possessing child pornography “even assuming he viewed the images in question only in temporary internet files and did not save them onto his hard drive.” Ramos, 685 F.3d at 131.10 First, the court explained, the defendant “clearly ‘receive[d]’ and ‘possesse[d]’ the images, even though they were only in his temporary internet files.” Id. (alterations in original). The evidence showed that the defendant had some control over the images even without saving them—he could view them on his screen, he could leave them on his screen for as long as he kept his computer on, he could copy and attach them to an email and send them to someone, he could print them, and he could (with the right software) move the images from a cached file to other files and then view or manipulate them off-line. Id. at 131–32 (citing Romm, 455 F.3d at 998 (relying on witness’s testimony as to what could be done with cached files); United States v. Tucker, 305 F.3d 1193, 1204–05 (10th Cir. 2002) (same)). In total, “the evidence showed [that] an individual who views images on the internet accepts them onto his computer, and he can still exercise dominion and control over them, even though they are in cache files. In other words, he receives and possesses them.” Id. at 132. Second, the court found “ample evidence that [the defendant] intentionally searched for images of child pornography, found them, and knowingly accepted them onto his computer, albeit temporarily.” Id. The defendant’s “browsing history on his desktop computer showed that [he] 10 Ramos concerned the July 27, 2006 to October 7, 2008 version of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A. 685 F.3d at 130. It did not concern Congress’s October 8, 2008 amendment of § 2252A(a)(5)(B), which added the words “or knowingly accesses with intent to view.” Id. at 130 n.7. -25- intentionally searched for child pornography on the internet” and “viewed some 140 images of child pornography, which were stored on the computer in temporary internet files.” Id. Croghan was charged with knowingly receiving child pornography and with knowingly accessing child pornography. The jury did not return a verdict on the access count in accordance with the district court’s instructions. Section 2252A(a)(5)(B) prohibits “knowingly access[ing] with intent to view, any . . . computer disk, or any other material that contains an image of child pornography.” In 2008, Congress added the “knowingly access” language “to make clear that accessing child pornography to view it was proscribed.” Ramos, 685 F.3d at 130 n.7 (citing Enhancing the Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act of 2007, Pub. L. No. 110–358, § 203(b), 122 Stat. 4001, 4003 (2008)). According to Croghan, the government proved, at most, that he knowingly accessed child pornography. See Appellant’s Br. at 22 (“The evidence at trial tended to show that Mr. Croghan accessed child pornography on Playpen, but it did not prove that he received (took custody of) child pornography.”) He requests that this court “remand for entry of judgment on the lesser-included accessing offense.” Appellant’s Reply Br. at 4 n.1 (citation omitted). Croghan, however, misunderstands the elements necessary to sustain a conviction for the access-with-intent offense and how those elements compare to the receipt offense. To sustain a conviction under § 2252A(a)(5)(B), the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant “(1) . . . knowingly access[ed] some proscribed material; (2) . . . intend[ed] to view that material; and (3) . . . kn[ew] that the material contain[ed] an image of child pornography.”Brune, 767 F.3d at 1020. The government need not “show[] that [the defendant] actually viewed illegal content on the site. The access-with-intent offense is complete the moment that the elements of access and intent coincide.” Tagg, 886 F.3d at 587. In other words, “knowingly -26- accessing a child-pornography website with the intent to view illegal materials is itself a criminal act.” Id. “This is the most natural reading of the statute.” Id. at 588. “Grammatically, the word ‘accesses’ (the actus reus of the crime) is directed towards the repository containing child pornography, not the child pornography itself.” Id. By contrast, “[t]he person who completes the circle and views the image has, instead, committed the actus reus of possession.” Id. “‘[A]ccess-with-intent’ liability is triggered when a person ‘intentionally searche[s] for images of child pornography, f[inds] them,’ but then stops short of viewing the images themselves.” Id. (second and third alterations in original) (quoting Ramos, 685 F.3d at 132); see also United States v. DeFoggi, 839 F.3d 701, 711–12 (8th Cir. 2016). Our cases have been viewed as “implicitly tak[ing] this broad view of the criminal liability provision of [§ 2252A(a)].” Tagg, 886 F.3d at 588 (citing DeFoggi, 839 F.3d at 711–12; Huyck, 849 F.3d at 442–43). In Huyck, the defendant was first convicted of receipt or attempted receipt of child pornography, in violation of § 2252A(a)(2), and access with intent to view child pornography, in violation of § 2252A(a)(5), based on his use of the Tor network to access Pedoboard, a hidden website “strictly devoted to child pornography.” 849 F.3d at 436. We held that “[t]he evidence presented at trial demonstrated that [the defendant] received and accessed with intent to view child pornography from Pedoboard.” Id. at 442. First, “[t]he NIT linked [the defendant’s] IP address to the November 21, 2012 access to Pedoboard.” Id. Second, the defendant “was the only adult living at his residence.” Id. Third, the defendant admitted to police that he had used the Tor network. Id. Fourth, the defendant “saved text files on his computer detailing instructions on how to access the Tor network along with links to . . . another hidden child pornography website on the Tor network.” Id. Without “discuss[ing] whether or not the government offered proof that [the defendant] had ever accessed images from th[e] website,” Tagg, 886 F.3d at 588, we concluded that this evidence “demonstrat[ed] his knowledge and intent to use the Tor network to receive and access child pornography.” Huyck, 849 F.3d at 442. -27- In summary, the access-with-intent offense is not synonymous with the receipt offense: the former requires only an intent to view, while the latter requires “intentionally view[ing], acquir[ing], or accept[ing] child pornography on a computer from an outside source.” Pruitt, 638 F.3d at 766.11 We hold that the government presented sufficient evidence that Croghan intentionally viewed child pornography. First, the government produced ample evidence of Croghan’s knowing receipt of child pornography through evidence about its undercover operation of Playpen, a Tor hidden service website. See Ross, 948 F.3d at 247.12 Croghan had the Tor network on his computer. The NIT linked Croghan’s IP address to the Playpen user account of Beau2358. Open-source internet searches and employment information confirmed that Beau2358 was Croghan; in addition, a search confirmed that Croghan had previously uploaded five images on PrimeJailbait.com, which bore a similar name to the Jail Bait section of Playpen. Croghan logged into his Playpen user account and searched 51 topics during the two-week period that the FBI controlled Playpen. 11 Had the government prosecuted Croghan only for the access-with-intent offense, it would have had more than sufficient evidence. This is because it produced evidence that Croghan did not just intend to view the child pornography, but actually viewed the pornography. 12 Ample evidence of Croghan’s intent is what distinguishes his case from United States v. Dobbs, 629 F.3d 1199 (10th Cir. 2011). In that case, “little doubt [existed] that [the defendant]—or at least his computer—‘received’ child pornography.” Id. at 1204. The defendant did “not contest that the government found images of child pornography on his computer.” Id. Instead, the defendant “challenge[d] the sufficiency of the government’s evidence establishing that he knowingly received the two images.” Id. (emphasis omitted). The Tenth Circuit concluded that “[t]he government presented no evidence that [the defendant] actually saw the two images on his monitor, such that he would have had the ability to exercise control over them.” Id. at 1207. Croghan’s case is the converse of Dobbs: Croghan concedes that he viewed child pornography but argues that he did not “receive” it because no child pornography was found on his computer. -28- Croghan had to take several steps to view child pornography on Playpen: log into Playpen with a user name and password, navigate to one of the various sub forums, and click on a post. The “images were embedded within that post”; therefore, when Croghan clicked on the post, the full-sized images “would have been downloaded to [his] computer and displayed on the computer screen without additional action being taken.” Trial Tr., Vol. II, at 111. Second, the government produced sufficient evidence that Croghan received child pornography. The government was not required to prove that Croghan saved the images to his hard drive to sustain a conviction for receipt. See Pruitt, 638 F.3d at 766–67; Ramos, 685 F.3d at 131. Instead, the government’s evidence that Croghan viewed the images is sufficient in the present case to prove receipt. See Ramos, 685 F.3d at 131. SA Alfin confirmed that Beau2358 “accessed” or “looked at” several different sections of Playpen: Preteen HardCore, Infants and Toddlers, Incest, and Jail Bait. Trial Tr., Vol. II, at 121. SA Alfin testified that, for example, “Beau2358 went into the Pre-teen hard core section” and “clicked on a topic.” Id. at 113. SA Alfin confirmed that Beau2358 “received . . . child pornography” once he “click[ed] on to the next screen” where the “first image c[ame] up or a group of images.” Id. “[A]ll of the images in the posting [were] downloaded to [Beau2358’s] computer over the Internet.” Id. at 114; see also id. at 142 (confirming that once a user “click[s] on an image and view[s] it, [the user has] received it,” “whether or not [the user] save[s] a copy to look at later”). These images “depict[ed] prepubescent children engaged in sexual activity.” Id. at 114. As in Ramos, the evidence showed that Croghan “had some control over the images even without saving them,” such as “view[ing] them on his screen” or “leav[ing] them on his screen for as long as he kept his computer on.” 685 F.3d at 131. And, as in Ramos, “there was ample evidence that [Croghan] intentionally searched for images of child pornography, found them, and knowingly accepted them -29- onto his computer, albeit temporarily.” Id. at 132. In addition to SA Alfin’s testimony detailing what Croghan looked at on Playpen, Trooper Haugaard testified that Croghan’s recent history included video file names of child pornography. And, Trooper Haugaard located a “bookmark” or “quick reference guide” in the computer’s browser under Croghan’s user name for a Russian website containing child exploitation material. Trial Tr., Vol. II, at 251. Trooger Haugaard confirmed locating “child pornography artifacts” on Croghan’s computer. Id. at 276. Accordingly, we hold that sufficient evidence supports Croghan’s conviction for receipt of child pornography.13