United States v. Palms

21 F.4th 689

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.Ramar Travelle PALMS, a/k/a Reddy, Defendant - Appellant.

No. 20-5072

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

FILED December 21, 2021

Blain Myhre, Blain Myhre LLC, Englewood, Colorado, for the Defendant – Appellant.

Thomas E. Duncombe, Assistant United States Attorney (Clinton J. Johnson, Acting United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Northern District of Oklahoma, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff – Appellee.

Before McHUGH, EBEL, and EID, Circuit Judges.

McHUGH, Circuit Judge.

The Government tried Appellant Ramar Palms before a jury in the Northern District of Oklahoma and obtained guilty verdicts on three crimes related to sex trafficking. On appeal, Mr. Palms asks this court to reverse his convictions and remand for a new trial for two reasons. First, Mr. Palms argues the district court should have suppressed the evidence obtained from his cell phone because the warrant and the search of his cell phone violated the Fourth Amendment. Second, he argues the district court abused its discretion when it excluded sexual behavior evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 412 because the exclusion violated the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

As detailed below, we hold the warrant to search Mr. Palms's cell phone was sufficiently particular and the search was reasonable. We also hold the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding sexual behavior evidence under Rule 412. Therefore, we affirm Mr. Palms's convictions.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual History

1. Mr. Palms and M.W.¹

In September 2018, Mr. Palms met M.W., a twenty-seven-year-old single mom, at a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They began to spend time together and went on a few dates. Eventually, Mr. Palms invited M.W. to go on a road trip to Louisiana with him. On that road trip, Mr. Palms told M.W. he was a pimp and that he wanted her to make money for him. At the time, they were in the car together "in the middle of nowhere," and M.W. could not get away from Mr. Palms. ROA Vol. III at 1022. That night, they stopped at a hotel in Houston, Texas. There, Mr. Palms assaulted M.W. Then, he advertised M.W.'s services online and forced M.W. to go on her first "date." Mr. Palms taught M.W. about the pimping industry and told her she should keep her head down and not look any man in the eyes because another pimp might steal her from him.

When they returned to Tulsa, Mr. Palms began controlling every aspect of M.W.'s life. Mr. Palms required M.W. to quit her two jobs and work for him full-time as a prostitute. He constantly communicated with M.W. via text messages and phone calls and monitored her whereabouts. Mr. Palms also tracked who M.W. talked to and controlled her money, car, and phone. If M.W. did something or talked to a man he did not approve of, he would hit or strangle her.

Mr. Palms posted ads or required M.W. to post ads to various websites offering commercial sex acts from M.W. Mr. Palms created a template for her to follow to ensure she would attract clients. He required M.W. to post the ads regularly throughout the day and to go on at least four or five "dates" a day. Clients paid Mr. Palms by Cash App or paid M.W. in cash. In either case, Mr. Palms required M.W. to give him all the money she earned. Mr. Palms would occasionally buy M.W. food and other items, but M.W. had to ask him for money to support herself and her two children. M.W. could not cover her utility bills or rent, and eventually she was evicted.

2. Arrest

On November 20, 2018, Tulsa police officer Justin Oxford was investigating online advertisements for suspected prostitution. Officer Oxford responded to one of the ads and was directed to meet M.W. in room 220 at the Peoria Inn in Tulsa. When he arrived, he saw Mr. Palms parked in a car near room 220. After M.W. let Officer Oxford into the room, he asked for a sex act and put money on the nightstand. When M.W. agreed, Officer Oxford identified himself as a police officer and arrested her. M.W. told Officer Oxford that she was being forced to work as a prostitute and identified Mr. Palms as her pimp. Officer Oxford also saw a text message from Mr. Palms on M.W.'s phone screen. The police arrested Mr. Palms in the parking lot and seized his cell phone.

3. Warrant and Search of Mr. Palms's Cell Phone

Officer Oxford sought a warrant to search Mr. Palms's cell phone from a Tulsa County judge. In his affidavit supporting the warrant, Officer Oxford detailed the events of November 20, 2018, and the information he obtained from M.W. about her connection with Mr. Palms. The judge issued a warrant to search Mr. Palms's cell phone. The warrant said "[p]robable cause ha[d] been shown" and authorized the police to search Mr. Palms's cell phone for "[r]ecords, data, communications and information which are evidence of Human Trafficking." ROA Vol. I at 68. Specifically, the warrant authorized the police to search Mr. Palms's cell phone for evidence

including, but not limited to, all digital evidence stored on removable storage and magnetic or electronic data contained in the contents of such tablet, cell phone, laptop, camera and/or memory cards, including electronic data storage devices, which in whole or part contain any and all evidence related to the subscriber information from the SIM (subscriber identification module) and/or ownership information for the device, electronic mail, call logs, contacts, calendars, location services information, global positioning (GPS) data and information, internet chat communications, browser cache, auto-complete forms, stored passwords, instant messaging, SMS (short message service), MMS (multimedia message service), social media account data and information, application data and information, documents, photographs, images, graphics, pictures, videos, movies, audio or video recordings, any associated metadata, and any recorded documents depicting communications, correspondence or storage of these communications, files, graphics, documents, or other data related to the crime of Human Trafficking.

Id.

Officer Brian Booth, a member of the Tulsa Police Department's intelligence unit, extracted all the data from Mr. Palms's cell phone pursuant to the warrant. Officer Booth gave the extracted information, excluding the cloud data,² to Officer Oxford, who searched it.

B. Procedural History

In July 2019, a federal grand jury charged Mr. Palms with sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591(a)(1), (a)(2), and (b)(1) (Count One); attempted obstruction of sex trafficking enforcement in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591(d) (Count Two); and retaliation against a victim and causing bodily harm in violation 18 U.S.C. § 1513(b)(2) (Count Three).

1. Motion to Suppress

Prior to trial, Mr. Palms submitted a motion arguing the evidence obtained from his cell phone should be suppressed because the warrant and the search of his cell phone violated the Fourth Amendment. He made four arguments in support: (1) the document titled "Search Warrant" was not actually a warrant because it did not have a sufficient statement of probable cause, command language, or appropriate headings;³ (2) the warrant lacked the particularity required by the Fourth Amendment because it did not limit the search to specific materials or to a specific crime; (3) the extraction and search of the data from the cell phone was unreasonable;⁴ and (4) the good faith exception did not apply because well-trained officers would have understood this warrant was invalid.

The district court held a limited evidentiary hearing on the search of the cell phone. At the hearing, the district court heard from Officer Booth, who extracted the data from the cell phone, and Officer Oxford, who searched it.

Officer Booth testified that he reviewed the warrant and extracted the data for the search. Officer Booth explained that he first tried to perform more limited types of extractions known as a file extraction and a logical extraction, but they did not work on Mr. Palms's cell phone because these extraction methods were blocked by the phone's software or the carrier. He then resorted to the last extraction option available on the machine he was using, which was a broad physical extraction. Officer Booth did not contact any other agencies to help him limit his extraction because he believed they would have the same options he had. The physical extraction created a byte-for-byte copy of the cell phone with data and metadata. Officer Booth did not limit the search to certain types of files. He extracted all the data on the cell phone.

Officer Oxford testified about the methodology he used to search the data. He informally limited his search to the relevant time-period from September 2018, when Mr. Palms met M.W., to November 20, 2018, when they were arrested. His methodology involved viewing SMS messages, MMS messages, photographs, and emails.⁵ Sometimes he used the search function to search key words, but he also viewed the evidence in their locations on the cell phone to determine their context. When Officer Oxford saw something unrelated to the crime of human trafficking, he moved on quickly. At one point, Officer Oxford discovered privileged attorney-client communications, and he promptly stopped his search to contact the prosecutor. He did not come across evidence of any crimes other than human trafficking during the search.

After the evidentiary hearing, the district court denied Mr. Palms's motion to suppress. The district court held the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment because it was supported by probable cause,⁶ and it was sufficiently particular because the search was reasonable under United States v. Loera , 923 F.3d 907 (10th Cir. 2019). Alternatively, the district court determined both the officers relied in good faith on the warrant. Mr. Palms asked the district court to reconsider, but the district court denied that motion.

2. Motion in Limine

Under Federal Rule of Evidence 412,...