Court Opinion

ID: 9847016
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:52:18.853883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:58.961594
License: Public Domain

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I wholly disagree with the radical view of probable cause expressed in the majority opinion — a view far more expansive than any circuit has taken to date — and, for that reason, I must vigorously dissent. The affidavit supporting the warrant in the instant case established a single fact particular to Frechette: Frechette bought a one-month membership to one website displaying child pornography. This is the sole basis upon which the majority rests its finding of probable cause, and the majority insists that this result is dictated by our case law and that of other circuits. Such an assertion, however, ignores the fact that the instant appeal is materially distinguishable from these prior cases.
For example, in United States v. Wafers, 452 F.3d 534 (6th Cir.2006), the affidavit in support of the warrant noted that the defendant had purchased memberships to three child pornography websites and that the defendant’s home IP address was associated with two of those purchases. Id. at 537, 539. Wagers’s repeated purchase of memberships to multiple websites for several months established a pattern of child-pornography association that provided a substantial basis for the magistrate issuing the search warrant to infer that Wagers was a collector of child pornography. The issuing magistrate could further *382infer that Wagers, as a collector, likely downloaded images and that there was a fair probability that evidence of such downloading would be on his computer. Unlike Wagers, however, Frechette subscribed to only one child-pornography website for only one month. The affidavit contains no indication that Frechette did anything more. A one-time purchase of a one-month membership to one child-pornography website simply does not allow a magistrate to draw the same inferences as the court did in Wagers, nor does Wagers dictate such a result.
United States v. Gourde, 440 F.3d 1065 (9th Cir.2006) (en banc), cited in Wagers and by the majority here, is distinguishable on similar grounds. In Gourde, the defendant subscribed to a child-pornography website “from November 2001 until January 2002.” Id. at 1068. Notably, “Gourde never cancelled his membership— the FBI shut down the site at the end of January, while he was still a member.” Id. In explaining what “identifying facts about Gourde ... made it fairly probable that he was a child pornography collector and maintained a collection of child pornography and related evidence,” the affidavit noted, among other facts, that “Gourde remained a member for over two months, although he could have cancelled at any time.” Id. Upholding the search warrant, the Ninth Circuit stressed that
Gourde is different ... from a person who actually mustered the money and nerve to become a member [of a child-pornography website] but, the next morning, suffered buyer’s remorse or a belated fear of prosecution and cancelled his subscription. Instead, Gourde became a member and never looked back — his membership ended because the FBI shut down the site.
Id. at 1070-71 (emphasis added). The majority here even recognizes that Gourde involved “multi-month access,” Maj. Op. at 380, but fails to appreciate that important distinction or to acknowledge the Ninth Circuit’s cautionary language about what Gourde did not do. See Gourde, 440 F.3d at 1070-71. In contrast with Gourde, as with Wagers, Frechette’s single site, one-month membership, with no renewal for the following sixteen months, does not allow a magistrate to draw the inference that Frechette was a collector or distributor. Frechette did not, in fact, become “a member and never look[] back,” Gourde, 440 F.3d at 1071, but rather he ceased affiliation with the site of his own accord.
Two additional cases that the majority cites to support its conclusions are also factually distinct from the instant case and do not control the outcome here. In United States v. Martin, 426 F.3d 68 (2d Cir. 2005), the affidavit asserted that the defendant “was a member of the girls 12-16 e-group, whose ... primary reason for existence[] was the trading and collection of child pornography.” Id. at 75 (emphasis added).1 Thus, in MaHin, membership in the group itself raised an inference that the defendant downloaded child pornography' — the defendant could not take advantage of the primary stated illicit purpose of the group without downloading material on his computer. See also Coreas, 419 F.3d at 156-58 (involving e-group membership). Likewise, the defendant in United States v. Froman, 355 F.3d 882 (5th Cir.2004), *383was a member of the e-group Candyman, the purpose of which “was to receive and distribute child pornography and erotica.” Id. at 890 (emphasis added). This fact led the Froman panel to conclude that “[t]he magistrate was entitled to infer from the affidavit that the singular purpose of Candyman was to trade pornography among its members [and] that the overriding reason someone would join this group was to permit him to receive and trade child pornography.” Id.
The e-groups involved in Martin and Froman differ significantly from a singular one-month membership to a child-pornography website where one of the primary uses is simply viewing child pornography, rather than trading.2 This “browsing,” without question, can be done without purposefully downloading images. Because in both Martin and Froman the defendants were required either to download images or receive them by e-mail in order to realize the primary purpose of group membership, these two cases fail to support the conelusion that a mere one-month membership to one child-pornography website— which did not purport to be a trading forum or advertise downloadable images3 —supported an inference that Frechette downloaded illegal images and that there was a fair probability that those images would be located on his computer. It is this distinction that makes the difference.
As demonstrated above, a critical and nuanced view of the case law makes clear that the majority is not merely applying precedent but rather expanding the law further than any other circuit. See also, e.g., United States v. Shields, 458 F.3d 269, 278-79 (3d Cir.2006) (finding probable cause when the defendant voluntarily became a member of two e-group sites trading in child pornography and subscribed with an e-mail address strongly suggestive of an interest in child pornography); United States v. Strauser, 247 F.Supp.2d 1135, 1144 (E.D.Mo.2003) (finding insufficient probable cause when the affidavit stated only that the defendant subscribed to the Candyman e-group for less than two *384months with a “sexually suggestive” screen name); Falso, 544 F.3d at 120 (noting the common factual threads that tend to establish probable cause). And taking into account the relevant factual distinctions of each case, based on the facts asserted in the affidavit, I fail to see how the totality of the circumstances supports a finding of probable cause here.
I cannot think of any other circumstance where we have endorsed an invasion of a person’s privacy with so few facts from which to draw an inference that the intrusion would likely uncover evidence of a crime. What is the justification for such an unprecedented encroachment upon our constitutional protections? Consider a factually identical scenario in a different context: Would this court approve a search warrant for all the computers in a home based on an affidavit that contains only one particularized fact — that someone who lived at that address obtained a one-month membership to a website that allows its members to listen to music in violation of copyright law? If the answer to this question is “yes,” there are not enough officers in the nation to enforce the countless warrants that magistrates may now issue to search college dorm rooms and homes across America. If the answer is “no,” as it should be, and as I suspect it would be, one must ask why two cases with materially indistinguishable facts result in two very different outcomes. The answer is as obvious as it is unsettling. The majority’s conclusion is erringly shaped by the fact that child pornography cases are particularly appalling. As reprehensible as our society finds those who peddle, purchase, and view child pornography, we, as judges, must not let our personal feelings of scorn and disgust overwhelm our duty to ensure the protection of individual constitutional rights. We must remember, as the district court observed, that we “must not deny the protections of the Constitution to the least of us. There is no such thing as a fair weather Constitution — one which offers the harbor of its protections against unreasonable search and seizure only in palatable contexts and only to worthy defendants.” ROA at 46 (Sept. 17, 2008 Op. at 2).
For the foregoing reasons, I must dissent.

. "An e-group is an internet forum through which persons with similar interests can interact by e-mail and online 'chat,' and by posting messages, pictures, and videos to the group's website.” Martin, 426 F.3d at 70 n. 1. Members of a particular e-group are generally authorized to distribute materials to and receive materials from other members of the same e-group via e-mail. See United States v. Coreas, 419 F.3d 151, 152 (2d Cir.2005) (describing the basic function of the Candyman e-group, which was hosted by Yahoo!).

. It appears to be an open question whether viewing child pornography on the internet is, in itself, a crime. See Martin, 426 F.3d at 77; United States v. Falso, 544 F.3d 110, 121 n. 13 (2d Cir.2008) (Sotomayor, J.); see also United States v. Kuchinski, 469 F.3d 853, 861-62 (9th Cir.2006); United States v. Stulock, 308 F.3d 922, 925 (8th Cir.2002); United States v. Tucker, 305 F.3d 1193, 1205 nn. 16, 17 (10th Cir.2002) (offering "no opinion on whether the mere viewing of child pornography on the Internet, absent caching or otherwise saving the image, would meet the statutory definition of possession” and upholding a conviction where the defendant "was not convicted for simply viewing child pornography, but for viewing images ... with the knowledge that the images were thereby saved on his computer”).

. The affidavit states that the investigating agents accessed the child pornography "web pages,” and viewed the content of the "splash pages (the first page welcoming the user to the website).” Record on Appeal ("ROA”) at 27, ¶ 11 (Application and Affidavit for Search Warrant, Apr. 3, 2008). The undercover agent, however, "did not purchase a membership,” id., which would have enabled him to access the content of the website and determine whether it contained capabilities in addition to mere browsing. Furthermore, there is no additional information in the affidavit indicating that this was an e-group-type site. The affidavit’s description of the site included only a description of the images on the splash page. Id. The affidavit further states that the website address was "HTTP:*** * *-lolita.com,” id. at 26 ¶ 4, indicating that its content was not hosted by one of the larger companies that typically provide internet services such as e-groups. Cf. United States v. Lapsins, 570 F.3d 758, 762 (6th Cir.2009) (discussing defendant’s creation of an e-group to share child pornography, which had the URL http://photos.yahoo.com/* * *). Nor were there other indications that it was an e-group or file-sharing website.