State v. Edwards

320 A.3d 387

2024 ME 55

STATE of Maine

v.Steven EDWARDS

Docket: Som-23-326

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued: May 9, 2024

Decided: August 1, 2024

Peter J. Cyr, Esq. (orally), The Law Offices of Peter J. Cyr, Esq., Portland, for appellant Steven Edwards

Maeghan Maloney, District Attorney, and Paul Cavanaugh, Asst. Dist. Atty. (orally), Office of the District Attorney, Skowhegan, for appellee State of Maine

Panel: STANFILL, C.J., and MEAD, HORTON, CONNORS, LAWRENCE, and DOUGLAS, JJ.

STANFILL, C.J.

[¶1] Following a jury trial, Steven Edwards was convicted of eighteen counts of possession of sexually explicit material (Class C), 17-A M.R.S. § 284(1)(C) (2024).¹ Edwards appeals from the judgment (Somerset County, Mullen, C.J.). Edwards challenges the court’s denials of his motion to suppress, motion for judgment of acquittal, motions for a mistrial, and motion for a new trial. We find no error and affirm his conviction.

I. BACKGROUND

[¶2] On January 6, 2021, Edwards entered a plea of not guilty to an indictment charging him with nine counts of possession of sexually explicit material (Class C) under 17-A M.R.S. § 284(1)(C). The State later filed a superseding indictment that included nine additional counts of possession of sexually explicit material (Class C), to which he also pleaded not guilty. All charges were based on images found, upon execution of a search warrant, on computers in Edwards’ possession.

[¶3] Edwards moved to suppress all evidence found on the computers, arguing that there was no probable cause for the warrant because the information in the affidavit supporting the application for the warrant was stale. After a hearing on August 12, 2022, the court denied the motion to suppress. The court found that the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit received referrals from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) alleging that on three separate dates, January 28, January 30, and February 26, 2019, potential child exploitation material had been uploaded from an IP address² associated with a property in Mercer, Maine, later identified to belong to Edwards. Based on these tips from NCMEC, a Computer Crimes Unit detective presented a request for a search warrant to the court on August 8, 2019. The search warrant was signed by the court on the same day and executed the next day. The affidavit presented in support of the application included the Computer Crimes Unit detective’s opinion that consumers of child pornography often keep images or evidence of images for significant periods of time and that even if such images are deleted, there is often evidence on the computer demonstrating that a consumer accessed the images. The affidavit also outlined the investigation undertaken between receipt of the tips and the request for a warrant, including the investigation’s findings concerning the physical location of the IP address, that Edwards resided at the house at that location, that Edwards has an interest in child pornography, and that he had previous convictions while in the military for possession of child pornography and other sexual misconduct charges.

[¶4] The court held a jury trial on March 14-16, 2023. At the trial, the court heard testimony from the detective with the Computer Crimes Unit, a special agent from Homeland Security Investigations who had examined Edwards’s computers, and a computer forensics expert for the defense. The Computer Crimes Unit detective testified that Edwards told her he had been searching for adult pornography and that sexually explicit images came up that were "embarrassing, young, and really bad." Edwards also told her he "does not look for child pornography but that there is a gray area where a little girl can look older and an older girl can look younger." The special agent testified that he found in unallocated space on Edwards’s computers multiple internet search terms that are used to search for sexually explicit images of minors. The special agent explained that unallocated space on a hard drive is where a file is stored when the "data is no longer needed. It’s been marked for deletion, but it’s not yet overwritten, so it’s still resident in the spot it was in." He also located eighteen thumbnail images³ in unallocated space on Edwards’s computers. The court admitted in evidence the images, the evidence log from the search of Edwards’s house, and a photograph of Edwards’s house.

[¶5] After the State rested, Edwards moved for a judgment of acquittal, arguing that the State had not presented evidence sufficient to support a finding that Edwards possessed the images, that he accessed the images on eighteen separate occasions, or that the images depicted persons under the age of twelve. The court denied the motion. After the defense rested, Edwards renewed his motion for a judgment of acquittal; it was again denied.

[¶6] During the State’s rebuttal closing argument, purportedly referring to the defense’s comments about the adult and "barely legal" pornography found on Edwards’s computers, the prosecutor stated, "Can you not tell the difference between an adult and a child? That is what this case is about. It’s not the however many he possessed that we didn’t charge him with." Edwards immediately objected and requested a mistrial. The court denied the motion for a mistrial but issued a curative instruction reminding the jury that closing arguments are not evidence and the jury should decide the case based solely on the evidence and the charges presented. After giving the curative instruction, the court also asked the jury if anyone would have a problem focusing only on the eighteen counts before them; the jurors indicated they would not.

[¶7] After having indicated to the court at the beginning of the day that he had no objections to the jury instructions, Edwards then stated, during the recess just prior to the court instructing the jury, that he did have a concern about the instructions. The court stated that it would give the previously agreed-upon instructions and that Edwards could object when they were given. The court also indicated further concern about the State’s statement during rebuttal. Edwards again objected to the jury instructions, but when the court asked for clarity as to the nature of his objection, Edwards’s attorney did not elab- orate, responding, "It’s as clear as I can make it at this point, Judge."

[¶8] The jury found Edwards guilty on all eighteen counts. After the trial, Edwards renewed his motion for a judgment of acquittal and filed motions for a mistrial and for a new trial. After argument, the court denied all three motions on August 9, 2023.

[¶9] The court sentenced Edwards to three years’ incarceration on Count 1. On Count 2, Edwards was sentenced to three years, all suspended, with six years’ probation, to be served consecutively to Count 1. On Count 3, the court sentenced Edwards to three years, all suspended, with six years’ probation, to be served consecutively to Count 2. On Count 4, he was sentenced to three years of incarceration, all suspended, with six years of probation, to be served consecutively to Count 3. On Counts 5 through 18, he was sentenced to three years’ incarceration, all suspended, with six years’ probation, to be served concurrently with Count 4 and with each other.

[¶10] Edwards timely appealed from the judgment of conviction and from the denial of his motions. See 15 M.R.S. § 2115 (2024); M.R. App. P. 2B(b)(1).

II. DISCUSSION

A. Motion to Suppress

[1] [¶11] Edwards first argues that the court erred in denying his motion to suppress the evidence seized pursuant to the search warrant because the information that formed the basis for probable cause was stale by the time the warrant was issued. He argues that as a result there was insufficient cause to believe that the images would be at Edwards’s house on the date of the application for a search warrant.

[2, 3] [¶12] "We review the factual findings supporting the denial of a motion to suppress evidence for clear error and the court’s ultimate conclusions de novo. We will uphold the denial of a motion to suppress if any reasonable view of the evidence supports the trial court’s decision." State v. McNaughton, 2017 ME 173, ¶ 28, 168 A.3d 807 (citations and quotation marks omitted).

[4] [¶13] "Whether probable cause still exists at the time a warrant is requested is determined not by the mere passage of time between observation of the evidence and application for the warrant but by the consideration of the unique facts and circumstances of the case at hand." State v. Roy, 2019 ME 16, ¶ 12, 201 A.3d 609. "In child pornography cases, if there is reasonable cause to believe that the material will be present when and where the search is to be conducted, staleness claims have been overcome for periods longer than the [eighty-day period] present here." State v. Wright, 2006 ME 13, ¶ 10, 890 A.2d 703; see also Roy, 2019 ME 16, ¶ 13 & n.2, 201 A.3d 609; United States v. Seiver, 692 F.3d 774, 778 (7th Cir. 2012) (noting that a central inquiry into staleness in a child pornography investigation requires "a realistic understanding of modern computer technology and the usual behavior of its users"). As we explained in Roy, in cases involving sexually explicit material of minors other courts have allowed years to pass without the information relied on for the issuance of a warrant becoming stale. Roy, 2019 ME 16, ¶ 13 & n.2, 201 A.3d 609.

[5] [¶14] Although the period between the last tips from NCMEC in February and the issuance of the warrant in August was longer than the periods of time we deemed permissible in Wright and Roy, we have never set a limit on the maximum time allowed before information leading to probable cause becomes stale. Instead, staleness is a fact-specific inquiry based on the circumstances of each case. Here, there was nothing affirmatively suggesting that the information could have been stale, such as a change in the IP address or...