Opinion ID: 4358069
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Internet ban

Text: Where a condition of supervised release implicates a constitutional right, we conduct a more searching review in light of the “heightened constitutional concerns” presented in such cases. Myers, 426 F.3d at 126. The government argues that Eaglin has no constitutional right to access the Internet. We reject that position as outdated and in conflict with recent Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court forcefully identified such a right in Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730 (2017), and it suggested as much in Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2428 (2014), as we adverted to above. 11 In Packingham, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a North Carolina criminal statute that made it a felony for sex offenders to access certain social media websites. 137 S. Ct. at 1738. The Court reasoned that, “to foreclose access to social media altogether is to prevent the user from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights.” Id. at 1737. By enforcing such a restriction, the Court elaborated, “North Carolina with one broad stroke bars access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square, and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge.” Id. The Court stated that it had never “approved of a statute as broad in its reach.” Id. The restriction in Packingham created a permanent restriction in the form of a criminal statute applicable to all registered sex offenders. See id. (noting the “troubling fact” that the offending statute imposed restrictions on persons who were no longer subject to the supervision of the criminal justice system). The restriction that Eaglin challenges here, in contrast, was imposed as a condition of supervised release that applies to Eaglin alone and for a limited albeit lengthy duration. Certain severe restrictions may be unconstitutional when cast as a broadly‐applicable criminal prohibition, but permissible when imposed on an individual as a condition of supervised release. See Farrell v. Burke, 449 F.3d 470, 497 (2d Cir. 2006) (“[T]he First Amendment rights of parolees are circumscribed.”). In our view, Packingham nevertheless establishes that, in modern society, citizens have a First Amendment right to access the Internet. 12 The substance of the Internet ban imposed on Eaglin is even broader in its terms, if not in its application, than that struck down in Packingham. Whereas the Packingham statute banned access only to certain social networking sites where minors may be present, such as Facebook and Twitter, the condition imposed on Eaglin prohibits his access to all websites.7 It therefore implicates the same First Amendment concerns that were at issue in Packingham: Eaglin has a First Amendment right to be able to email, blog, and discuss the issues of the day on the Internet while he is on supervised release. Moreover, one of the conditions of supervised release is that he remain employed: to search for a job in 2019, the Internet is nearly essential, as the Court in Packingham recognized. 137 S. Ct. at 1737. Even before Packingham was decided, we rejected total bans on Internet access in several cases challenging similar conditions of supervised release. For example, in Peterson, in 2001, we vacated a ban on Internet access as overly broad where the defendant had been convicted of bank larceny but had been charged with violating conditions of supervised release by viewing adult pornography. 248 F.3d at 82. Although we acknowledged “a relationship” between Peterson’s Internet restriction and his conviction for incest predating his larceny conviction, we concluded nonetheless that “the condition [was] neither reasonably related to that conviction nor reasonably necessary to the sentencing objectives.” Id. at 83 (emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted). Critically, the record in Peterson displayed “no 7 Because the District Court adopted the condition on the government’s recommendation for a complete Internet ban and required specific permission from the court for any desired instances of internet access, we understand the condition effectively to operate as a total Internet ban. 13 indication that Peterson’s past incest offense had any connection to computers or to the Internet.” Id. We thus determined that the facts of Peterson’s case did not warrant “so broad a prohibition” on his Internet usage. Id. Similarly, in United States v. Sofsky, in 2002, we held that a total Internet ban inflicted a greater deprivation of liberty than was reasonably necessary in the case of a defendant who had illegally downloaded child pornography. 287 F.3d 122, 126 (2d Cir. 2002). Like the Court in Packingham, we were concerned that such a ban “prevents use of e‐mail . . . [and] other common‐place computer uses such as doing any research, getting a weather forecast, or reading a newspaper online”—activities that raise no obvious risk of criminal activity. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Our sister circuits have similarly rejected absolute Internet bans even where the defendant had used the computer for ill in his crime of conviction. See, e.g., United States v. LaCoste, 821 F.3d 1187, 1192 (9th Cir. 2016) (rejecting Internet ban where defendant conspired to commit securities fraud); United States v. Wiedower, 634 F.3d 490, 495 (8th Cir. 2011) (rejecting Internet ban where defendant was convicted of possessing child pornography); United States v. Perazza‐Mercado, 553 F.3d 65, 72‐74 (1st Cir. 2009) (rejecting Internet ban in the home where crime of conviction involved defendant knowingly engaging in sexual contact with a female under the age of twelve); United States v. Freeman, 316 F.3d 386, 391‐92 (3d Cir. 2003) (rejecting Internet ban where defendant was convicted of receiving and possessing child pornography); United States v. Holm, 326 F.3d 872, 877 (7th Cir. 2003) (rejecting Internet ban where defendant was convicted of possessing child pornography). 14 In light of our precedent, and as emphasized by Packingham’s recognition of a First Amendment right to access certain social networking websites, the imposition of a total Internet ban as a condition of supervised release inflicts a severe deprivation of liberty. In only highly unusual circumstances will a total Internet ban imposed as a condition of supervised release be substantively reasonable and not amount to a “‘greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary’ to implement the statutory purposes of sentencing.” Myers, 426 F.3d at 123‐24 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)). On the record before us, the imposition of a total Internet ban for the eleven‐year period of Eaglin’s supervised release is substantively unreasonable as it has not been shown to be “reasonably related” to the statutory factors governing sentencing nor to be reasonably necessary to effectuate the sentencing objectives. First, the record does not demonstrate that an Internet ban is reasonably related to “the nature and circumstances” of the crime of conviction or to Eaglin’s “history and characteristics.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). So far as we can see, the Internet has nothing to do with Eaglin’s 2012 offense of failing to register as a sex offender. Nor has Eaglin been charged with or convicted of a sex crime involving Internet use. This is not a case in which the crime of conviction or the violation of supervised release involved using the Internet to prey on children or otherwise endanger the public. Cf. Johnson, 446 F.3d at 282‐83 (upholding ban where defendant previously used the Internet to convince children to meet him and have sex). Indeed, as the District Court noted, the record contains no evidence that Eaglin accessed child pornography online (or at all). As we warned in Peterson, recognizing that “a computer with Internet access offers the possibility of abusive use for illegitimate purposes” provides an insufficient justification 15 for an all‐out prohibition absent a close connection to the defendant’s past illegal conduct, or strong independent grounds for linking it to a real potential for future harm. 248 F.3d at 83 (emphasis added). Here, neither the nature and circumstances of Eaglin’s failure to register nor his history and characteristics meaningfully support the drastic step of imposing a complete Internet ban on Eaglin as means of protecting the public or deterring recidivism.8 Moreover, imposing an Internet ban would arguably impair Eaglin’s ability to receive “needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment in the most effective manner”—one of the goals of sentencing. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(D). Today, as we observed above, access to the Internet is essential to reintegrating supervisees into everyday life, as it provides avenues for seeking employment, banking, accessing government resources, reading about current events, and educating oneself. See, e.g., Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2210 (carrying a cell or smart phone “is indispensable to participation in modern society”). Yet when imposing the sweeping Internet ban challenged here, the District Court did not address on the record 8 Although the District Court did not address these concerns on the record, we observe and note our concern that the government’s sentencing memorandum adverted to “prior sexual assault convictions involving both minor and adult victims, one of which involved the knife point rape of an adult female.” App. 60. Other than Eaglin’s 2003 and 2004 convictions for non‐violent felonious sexual assault, the record on appeal reflects no convictions for sexual assault. The record does, however, reflect that Eaglin was acquitted by a jury in 2005 of charges that he had sexually assaulted a girlfriend at knifepoint. And in 2015, as mentioned above, Eaglin was arrested for rape, and the charges were dismissed when the woman recanted her initial statement and told police she had not been raped. To the extent that the government intended to invite the District Court to consider charges of which Eaglin was not convicted, we nonetheless question whether a total, outright Internet ban is sustainable in place of the conditions monitoring Internet use previously imposed. 16 the likely adverse impact of isolating Eaglin from these important positive uses of the Internet or engage in any explicit balancing of these competing interests. Finally, it is not clear from the record that an Internet ban was reasonably necessary to effectuate any of the purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2). Although the District Court asserted that “the community is at risk from” Eaglin when he accesses the Internet, App. at 74, we are not persuaded that the Internet ban is reasonably necessary to “protect the public from [Eaglin’s] further crimes,” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(C). Both the government and the District Court appear to have viewed a total Internet ban as a necessary means of preventing Eaglin from viewing adult pornography (of which more will be said below) and from identifying potential romantic or sexual partners.9 See Appellee’s Br. 24‐25; App. 73‐74. But the earlier Internet restriction placed on Eaglin, under which his Internet use was monitored by the Probation Office, remained to all outward appearances a viable option. Such a restriction would adequately protect the public from Eaglin’s potential misuse of the Internet while imposing a more reasonable burden on Eaglin’s First Amendment interest in accessing the Internet. See United States v. Browder, 866 F.3d 504, 512 (2d Cir. 2017) (holding that a condition of supervised release that imposed a “narrowly tailored” computer monitoring program on a defendant convicted of child pornography possession was not an excessive deprivation 9 To the extent that the District Court disapproved of Eaglin seeking out consensual adult sexual partners, the absence of a detailed explanation for its disapproval leaves us concerned. The “right to enter into and to maintain intimate personal relationships,” including sexual ones, is a “well‐established” liberty interest. United States v. Reeves, 591 F.3d 77, 82 (2d Cir. 2010). Unless the record contains strong evidence of a reason for concern—and we saw none here—a court imposing conditions of supervised release must tread especially lightly in this area. 17 of liberty). The record does not explain why such monitoring was insufficient, other than by noting the Probation Office’s concern that, while under that restriction, Eaglin successfully contacted an adult woman who agreed to an encounter with him. If Eaglin’s potential contact with children is of concern, despite the record’s dearth of evidence suggesting that Eaglin is likely to seek out children on social media or prey on them in reality, the District Court must make a record of the basis for such concerns and craft restrictions that address them with particularity. As the Supreme Court noted in Packingham, such specific and narrowly tailored restrictions “must be the State’s first resort to ward off the serious harm that sexual crimes inflict.” 137 S. Ct at 1737. In short, the Internet ban imposed on Eaglin severely encroached on his First Amendment rights by depriving him of the opportunity to engage with modern society. And it did so without any clear evidence in the record that the condition was warranted by Eaglin’s criminal history or characteristics, the need for deterrence or to protect the public, or the court’s desire to provide necessary rehabilitative services to Eaglin. We therefore conclude that the District Court exceeded the permissible bounds of its discretion in imposing this substantively unreasonable condition: the untailored Internet ban is not reasonably related to the relevant sentencing factors and involves a greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary to serve the relevant sentencing objectives.