State v. Young

552 P.3d 527

STATE of Arizona, Appellee/Cross-Appellant,

v.Randy Scott YOUNG, Appellant/Cross-Appellee.

No. 1 CA-CR 23-0355

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division 1.

Filed June 13, 2024

Appeal from the Superior Court in Yavapai County, No. V1300CR201880059, The Honorable Krista M. Carman, Judge, The Honorable Tina R, Ainley, Judge, The Honorable Michael R. Bluff, Judge. AFFIRMED IN PART; DISMISSED IN PART

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Phoenix, By Joshua C. Smith, Counsel for Appellee/Cross-Appellant

Zickerman Law Office, Flagstaff, By Adam Zickerman, Counsel for Appellant/Cross-Appellee

Presiding Judge Paul J. McMurdie delivered the Court’s opinion, in which Judge Maria Elena Cruz and Judge Cynthia J. Bailey joined.

OPINION

McMURDIE, Judge:

¶1 Defendant Randy Young appeals his convictions and sentences for six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. In a previous case, the superior court suppressed evidence found on Young’s laptop computer. The State then moved to dismiss the charges without prejudice, which the court granted. Some six years later, the State refiled the charges. The court denied Young’s suppression motion in the refiled case, and the jurors convicted him. On appeal, Young argues that the court erred by not following the previous suppression order.

¶2 We hold that the superior court was not bound by the previous suppression order under Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure ("Rule") 16, the law of the case, or collateral estoppel. On the suppression motion’s merits, we hold that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to co-employees who are searching for non-criminal files (lesson plans) and accidentally stumble onto contraband (child pornography).

¶3 The State cross-appeals, challenging Young’s sentence as illegally lenient because the court ordered one count to run concurrently with, rather than consecutive to, the other counts. We dismiss the State’s cross-appeal because it was not timely filed.

¶4 Thus, we affirm Young’s convictions and sentences.

FACTS¹ AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

¶5 Young taught and coached at American Heritage Academy, a charter school formed by Steve Anderson, the school’s principal,² and his wife. The principal ran the school, and some of his children worked there. Angela White, the principal’s daughter, taught history and English classes. Aaron Anderson, the principal’s son, was the school’s athletic director and assisted with technological services.

¶6 Young was the assistant athletic director. Young shared classroom space with White. In early 2012, White took over Young’s classes when his employment was suspended or terminated. White began looking for Young’s lesson plans and assumed the plans were on Young’s personal laptop in the classroom. The laptop appeared uncharged, so White brought it to Anderson to help her find the lesson plans.

¶7 Young’s laptop was password-protected, but Anderson knew Young’s password because they shared it to access each other’s sports schedules. Anderson successfully logged onto the computer using Young’s password. Once Anderson and White accessed the computer, they searched Young’s files for the lesson plans. During the search, they opened a file folder containing sexually explicit pictures of naked children.

¶8 Anderson and White contacted the principal and showed him the laptop. The principal viewed the images and called the police. After receiving a report that the school had a laptop with illegal images, the police visited the school. The principal gave Young’s laptop to the police. The police secured the laptop and obtained a search warrant based on the information given to them. They then searched the laptop and found pornographic images of children.

¶9 The State charged Young with multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. See A.R.S. § 13-3553(A)(2). Young moved to suppress the laptop evidence, claiming a Fourth Amendment violation. He argued he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in his laptop, the school employees were state actors who searched the laptop unlawfully without a warrant, and the police improperly seized the laptop without a warrant. In response, the State claimed there was no Fourth Amendment violation because Young abandoned his laptop at the school and had no legitimate privacy expectation. The superior court found that Young did not abandon the laptop and had a legitimate privacy expectation, so it suppressed the laptop evidence. The court dismissed the charges without prejudice on the State’s motion.

¶10 In 2018, the State re-charged Young with ten counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. Young moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing it was "unsupported by admissible evidence." See Ariz. R. Crim. P. 16.4(b) (On the defendant’s motion, the superior court must dismiss the prosecution if the indictment is insufficient.). Young explained that the prosecution was based on the same evidence suppressed in the 2012 case, the State never appealed the suppression, and there was no new evidence supporting the charges. The State argued the prior suppression order did not bar it from re-litigating the matter.

¶11 Young also argued that re-litigating the evidence’s admissibility violated Rule 16.1(d). But the superior court found that Rule 16 did not apply because the 2012 and 2018 matters were separate cases. Under State v. Greenberg, the court determined it could reconsider the evidence’s admissibility. 236 Ariz. 592, 343 P.3d 462 (App. 2015).

¶12 Turning to the motion’s merits, the superior court held an evidentiary hearing. White, Anderson, and the principal recounted their actions and experiences when they accessed Young’s laptop in 2012. This time, along with arguing that Young had no legitimate privacy expectation in the laptop, the State also argued that no impermissible search occurred because the school employees were not state actors, and the police could lawfully seize the laptop based on what the co-employees discovered.

¶13 The court denied the motion to suppress. The court applied the test for searches performed by private citizens. It found that there was no evidence the government was involved in the initial search of Young’s laptop, and Young presented no evidence at the hearing showing White was looking for something other than Young’s lesson plans. Thus, White, Anderson, and the principal were "simply school employees looking for a class curriculum" when they discovered the illegal images. The court found no error in the police’s seizure, and there was no challenge to the search warrant’s validity.

¶14 The case proceeded to trial. The court dismissed four counts without prejudice on the State’s motion. A jury found Young guilty on the six remaining counts. For five counts, the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that the depicted minors were under 15 years old. The court sentenced Young to consecutive ten-year sentences for the five counts. For the count without a jury finding that the depicted minor was under 15, the court sentenced Young to a concurrent sentence of four years.

¶15 Young appealed. The State cross-appealed. We have jurisdiction to review Young’s appeal under A.R.S. §§ 12-120.21(A)(1) and 13-4033(A)(1). We lack jurisdiction to address the State’s cross-appeal.

DISCUSSION

A. The Superior Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion by Denying Young’s Motion to Dismiss.

[1] ¶16 Young argues the superior court erred by denying the motion to dismiss because the 2018 indictment was not supported by admissible evidence, and the re-indictment violated his right to be free from double jeopardy. We review the court’s ruling on a motion to dismiss for abuse of discretion and related constitutional claims de novo. State v. Holmes, 250 Ariz. 311, 313, ¶ 5, 478 P.3d 1256, 1258 (App. 2020) (quoting State v. Ramsey, 211 Ariz. 529, 532, ¶ 5, 124 P.3d 756, 759 (App. 2005)).

¶17 This court addressed the procedure for handling previously suppressed evidence in a later filed case in Greenberg, 236 Ariz. 592, 343 P.3d 462. In Greenberg, the superior court suppressed a defendant’s confession and dismissed sexual exploitation charges without prejudice, and the State did not appeal the confession suppression ruling. Id. at 595-96, ¶¶ 10-11, 343 P.3d at 465-66. Later, the State re-charged the defendant with multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and additional charges. Id. at 596, ¶ 13, 343 P.3d at 466. The superior court reconsidered the voluntariness of the defendant’s confession and ruled that the suppressed confession was admissible in the second, case. Id. at ¶¶ 14, 17.

¶18 This court found no error with the superior court’s subsequent review of the confession’s admissibility. See Greenberg, 236 Ariz. at 598, 600, ¶¶ 25, 37, 343 P.3d at 468, 470. We concluded that neither the law of the case, Rule 16.1(d), nor collateral estoppel precluded the court from reconsidering the confession’s admissibility in the second prosecution. Id. Applying Greenberg to a Fourth Amendment suppression issue, we conclude that the superior court did not err by reconsidering the laptop evidence admissibility in this case.

[2–5] ¶19 Under the law of the case, a court will not "reopen questions previously decided in the same case by the same court or a higher appellate court." State v. Whelan, 208 Ariz. 168, 171, ¶ 8, 91 P.3d 1011, 1014 (App. 2004) (quoting Davis v. Davis, 195 Ariz. 158, 162, ¶ 13, 985 P.2d 643, 647 (App. 1999)). Similarly, under Rule 16.1(d), "[a] court may not reconsider an issue previously decided in the case" unless good cause or other rules require otherwise. Law of the case and Rule 16.1(d) "appl[y] in the setting of the same case." Whelan, 208 Ariz. at 171, ¶ 9, 91 P.3d at 1014. Thus, neither applies here because "although the underlying facts in each prosecution were identical and the charges were the same, there were two separate actions." Id. at ¶ 10.

[6–8] ¶20 Under collateral estoppel principles, once a valid and final judgment determines an issue, the same parties cannot relitigate an...