Opinion ID: 4540052
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Arterbury I

Text: In 2015, the FBI seized an internet server used to operate a child-pornography website known as PlayPen. The FBI loaded the PlayPen server’s contents onto the FBI’s server located in the Eastern District of Virginia. The FBI planned to operate the website to identify PlayPen’s visitors. But the FBI soon encountered an obstacle: PlayPen ran on the Tor network, which blocked the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of its visitors. 1 Though the more modern term is “issue preclusion,” we use “collateral estoppel” to be consistent with the usage of the district court and parties. 2 The FBI had its own software to overcome this difficulty. The FBI’s software could surreptitiously install malware on the computer of any PlayPen visitor. The malware would then obtain the visiting computer’s IP address and relay it back to the FBI. But because this activity would amount to a search of the user’s computer, the FBI needed a search warrant. The FBI obtained the needed search warrant from a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia. Backed by the search warrant, the FBI soon installed its software and placed its malware on the computers of PlayPen-website visitors. After doing so, the FBI retrieved the IP addresses of hundreds of PlayPen visitors, including a visitor (later determined to be Arterbury) who had logged on to the PlayPen site several times between February 20 and March 4, 2015. The FBI issued a subpoena to this visitor’s internet provider to obtain the physical address associated with the IP address. In this way, the FBI learned the account holder’s street address in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. With the street address in hand, an FBI agent sought a second search warrant, this time from a magistrate judge in the Northern District of Oklahoma. This warrant authorized a search for child-pornography evidence at the Broken Arrow residence located at that street address. In issuing the search warrant, the court relied on the agent’s affidavit, which included key information obtained from execution of the Virginia magistrate’s search warrant. For instance, the agent’s affidavit represented that a person using an IP address associated with the Broken Arrow street address had logged on to the PlayPen site several times during the FBI’s investigation. An 3 Oklahoma magistrate judge issued the search warrant. In executing the search warrant, the FBI found 3,500 images and 270 videos of child pornography on Arterbury’s computer. On December 7, 2015, a grand jury sitting in the Northern District of Oklahoma returned an indictment charging Arterbury with a single count of possession of child pornography. See 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B), (b)(2). Before the trial date, Arterbury filed a motion to suppress, arguing that the “magistrate judge in Virginia exceeded her authority under Fed. R. Crim. P. 41 by issuing a warrant for property outside her jurisdiction.” R. Vol. I at 39. When the Virginia magistrate judge issued the search warrant, Rule 41 permitted magistrate judges to issue “a warrant to search for and seize a person or property located within the [magistrate’s] district.” 2 Id. at 42 (quoting Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(b) (2015)). Arterbury noted that the FBI had searched in Oklahoma when it installed malware on his computer and obtained his IP address. Thus, Arterbury claimed, the Virginia magistrate judge’s warrant was void ab initio for authorizing a search of property outside the Virginia