Court Opinion

ID: 9925385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-19 17:00:49.316287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:08.926805
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                        ___________________________

                                No. 23-1652
                        ___________________________

                            United States of America

                                     Plaintiff - Appellee

                                        v.

                 Keshawn Boykins, also known as Turbo Hefner

                                   Defendant - Appellant
                                 ____________

                    Appeal from United States District Court
                  for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Central
                                 ____________

                         Submitted: December 11, 2023
                            Filed: January 19, 2024
                                 [Unpublished]
                                ____________

Before GRUENDER, GRASZ, and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
                          ____________
PER CURIAM.

      T.M. met defendant Keshawn Boykins when she was seventeen. The two
began messaging on Instagram, where Boykins used the name “Turbo Hefner.”
Soon thereafter, while still seventeen, T.M. moved in with Boykins, and Boykins
began having her engage in prostitution. Boykins created online profiles for T.M.
on the website Seeking Arrangements and, initially, handled messaging those who
responded. Boykins also took nude photos of T.M. on his cell phone “[t]o send to
customers.” At least one of the sexually explicit photos that Boykins took of T.M.
for “business, to send out” was found on his phone. The phone also contained
another explicit photo that T.M. sent to Boykins at his request. Boykins sent that
photo from his phone to a contact labeled “David from Seeking Arrangements.” In
both photos, T.M. was seventeen.

       A federal grand jury indicted Boykins on charges of sex trafficking, sex
trafficking of a minor, and production and distribution of child pornography. He
was arrested, pleaded not guilty, and proceeded to trial. The district court1 denied
Boykins’s motions for judgment of acquittal, and the jury found Boykins guilty on
all counts. Boykins now appeals, arguing that the district court improperly admitted
insufficiently authenticated evidence and that the properly admitted evidence was
insufficient to support the child pornography convictions.

        We first address Boykins’s argument that the district court erred by admitting
insufficiently authenticated electronic-communication and social-media evidence
obtained from Boykins’s phone. Boykins stipulated to the admissibility of the
challenged evidence at trial, yet now claims error based on its admission. We have
repeatedly held that a defendant waives his right to challenge the admission of
evidence after stipulating to its admissibility. See, e.g., United States v. Rodriguez,
984 F.3d 704, 710 (8th Cir. 2021) (stipulating to admissibility of a transcript of an
audio recording precluded the defendant from subsequently claiming error based on
alleged inaccuracies in that transcript); see also United States v. Mezzanatto, 513
U.S. 196, 202 (1995) (“[A]greements to waive evidentiary rules are generally
enforceable even over a party’s subsequent objections.”). At the beginning of trial,
Boykins stipulated to the admissibility of all exhibits except two photos not at issue
in this appeal. His counsel also acknowledged that all the exhibits being admitted—
including the now-challenged exhibits—“compl[ied] with the rules of evidence.”
Thus, Boykins waived his right to raise a subsequent challenge to the authentication
of the electronic-communication and social-media evidence.

      1
       The Honorable James M. Moody Jr., United States District Judge for the
Eastern District of Arkansas.
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       Moreover, even if we found his challenge was not waived, it still fails. “We
usually review challenges to the district court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of
discretion, reversing only if an error was not harmless.” United States v. White Bull,
646 F.3d 1082, 1091 (8th Cir. 2011). “If the admission of a contested piece of
evidence was not timely objected to at trial, however, we review for plain error.” Id.
In such instances, we reverse only if the defendant shows “(1) an error, (2) that was
plain, and (3) affects substantial rights, and that (4) the error seriously affects the
fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v.
Lewis, 673 F.3d 758, 762 (8th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted). Boykins raised his objection to the authentication of the electronic-
communication and social-media evidence for the first time on appeal, so we review
for plain error. 2

       “To satisfy the requirement of authenticating or identifying an item of
evidence, the proponent must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that
the item is what the proponent claims it is.” Fed. R. Evid. 901(a). “Sufficient
evidence may include the testimony of a witness with knowledge, or ‘the
appearance, contents, substance, internal patterns, or other distinctive characteristics
of the item, taken together with all the circumstances.’” United States v. Lamm, 5
F.4th 942, 946 (8th Cir. 2021) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(1), (b)(4)). “[T]he party
authenticating the exhibit need only prove a rational basis for that party’s claim that

      2
        “To preserve an error for appellate review, an objection must . . . clearly state
the grounds for the objection.” United States v. Pirani, 406 F.3d 543, 549 (8th Cir.
2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). Boykins argues that he preserved these
arguments for appeal by objecting to a lack of foundation when FBI Special Agent
Daniel Turner and the Government attributed messages from the phone to Boykins
during Turner’s testimony. Boykins made no mention of authentication, nor is it
clear that he intended to challenge the admissibility of the text messages themselves.
Even if the objection had sufficed to preserve this narrow authentication challenge,
we would conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding
sufficient authentication of the phone and its contents. See United States v. Turner,
934 F.3d 794, 798 (8th Cir. 2019).
                                          -3-
the document is what it is asserted to be.” United States v. Ramirez-Martinez, 6
F.4th 859, 866 (8th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted).

       Boykins first challenges the admission of electronic-communication evidence
extracted from the cell phone, specifically photos and messages. Testimony from
T.M. and Special Agent Turner established that the phone belonged to Boykins, that
Boykins gave the number associated with the phone to law enforcement as his
contact number, that Boykins admitted to arresting officers that the phone was his,
that Boykins kept the phone password protected, that T.M. never used it, and that
T.M. never saw anyone except Boykins use it. Special Agent Turner also stated that
there were messages on the phone where the author referred to himself by Boykins’s
nickname “Turbo.” T.M. identified a sexually explicit photograph of herself from
the phone that she testified was taken by Boykins on his phone “[f]or business, to
send out” when she was seventeen years old. T.M. further testified that, at Boykins’s
request, she sent him sexually explicit photographs of herself when she was still
seventeen for use in the business, and she specifically identified one of those photos
that was subsequently sent from Boykins’s phone to someone else. The court did
not plainly err in admitting the messages and photo evidence from the phone, as the
evidence presented by the Government “certainly meets the undemanding ‘rational
basis’ standard” and suffices to properly authenticate them. See id. at 866-67; United
States v. Turner, 934 F.3d at 798.

       Boykins also challenges the admission of content from his Instagram account.
We recognize that authentication of social media evidence may present some
“special challenges because of the great ease with which a social media account may
be falsified or a legitimate account may be accessed by an imposter.” Lamm, 5 F.4th
at 947. Nonetheless, we have been clear that, just as with phone messages and
images, “the Government may authenticate social media evidence with
circumstantial evidence linking the defendant to the social media account.” Id. at
948. Here, T.M. testified to messaging with Boykins via the account. The author of
messages from the account referred to himself by Boykins’s known nickname, and
the account was registered to his email. Thus, the court did not plainly err in
admitting the social media content at trial.
                                         -4-
      Boykins also argues that, because the challenged electronic-communication
and social-media evidence should have been excluded, insufficient evidence
supported the child-pornography convictions. Because the challenged evidence was
properly admitted, this argument also fails. See United States v. Pliego, 578 F.3d
938, 941 (8th Cir. 2009) (standard of review). A reasonable jury could find Boykins
guilty of both production and distribution of child pornography based on the
evidence described above. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(a), 2252(a)(2).

      For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
                      ______________________________

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