United States v. Woodson

30 F.4th 1295

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Joseph Isaiah WOODSON, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 20-10443

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Filed: April 13, 2022

Robert Craig Juman, Emily M. Smachetti, U.S. Attorney's Office, Miami, FL, Daniel Matzkin, Laura Thomas Rivero, U.S. Attorney Service - Southern District of Florida, U.S. Attorney Service - SFL, Miami, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Bernardo Lopez, Federal Public Defender's Office, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Kathleen E. Mollison, Michael Caruso, Federal Public Defender, Federal Public Defender's Office, Miami, FL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before Branch, Grant, and Brasher, Circuit Judges.

Grant, Circuit Judge:

Joseph Woodson preyed on adolescent girls. He infiltrated their social media accounts one by one, using an account of a victim's friend to gain access to the victim's account, locking the victim out of her account, and then continuing the cycle to target new victims. He then demanded that the girls produce and send pornographic material to get their accounts back. But Woodson did not stop there; once he had the degrading images and sexual videos in hand, he threatened to post them on social media unless the girls complied with his progressively horrifying demands. He made good on those threats. And he did not act alone—with a team of other men, he brainstormed tactics, traded targets, and shared the pornographic fruits of their scheme. Together, they abused hundreds of girls.

Woodson was eventually charged with offenses relating to child pornography and extortionate interstate communications. A jury found him guilty on all counts, and the district court sentenced him to 50 years’ imprisonment followed by a life term of supervised release. He now appeals, arguing that the district court should have suppressed statements he made to police without the benefit of Miranda warnings. He also says the court imposed an unreasonable sentence. But Woodson was not entitled to Miranda warnings because he was not in custody when he talked with police, and his sentence was reasonable, both procedurally and substantively. We therefore affirm.

I.

A.

Joseph Woodson first contacted 14-year-old Kendra through a social media application called Snapchat.¹ One night in November 2017, Kendra received a message on the app from one of her friends asking for her password. This was not uncommon, surprisingly enough; Kendra and her friends often traded Snapchat passwords so that they could message users from each other's accounts. Kendra sent her friend the password, but when she tried to log back in to her own account, the password had been changed. A text message from an unknown sender soon instructed her to create a new account on a messaging application called Kik if she wanted to access her Snapchat account again. Kendra quickly realized that she had been communicating with a stranger, not a friend. Though she did not know it at the time, that stranger was Joseph Woodson.

Kendra did as she was told, and Woodson's instructions continued over Kik. He first demanded a picture of her bare breasts. She complied, hoping that he would be satisfied with the one photo. He was not. In fact, he immediately threatened to distribute the picture unless she supplied more. Kendra "felt stuck, like there was nowhere else to go but to keep sending everything." Woodson's orders escalated—he instructed her to send explicit pictures of her body with vile writing on it, as well as videos of her performing sexual acts. Over the course of a few hours, Kendra sent Woodson several videos and more than 50 pictures, hoping with each one she sent that the extortion would end. When his demands finally stopped coming that night, she thought it was over.

It was not. Less than two months later, Woodson or one of his partners in crime sent one of the photos to Kendra's close friend in an Instagram message. Kendra realized in horror after her friend contacted her that "it was all happening again." Sure enough, she soon received a message threatening to publicize her "worst pics." Kendra's abuser greeted her hesitation with reminders of his leverage—he sent back humiliating photos and videos, along with a threat to distribute them to everyone she knew. Kendra felt like she had "no escape."

Woodson escalated the conversation on Kik. Kendra tried to satisfy his new demand for an oral sex video by telling him that she would make the video with her boyfriend when she was next with him. Woodson was not pleased. He demanded that she produce the video that day, and with a stranger, or else he would "start showing the good stuff." Kendra's response was firm: she would rather kill herself than comply. Woodson's reply? "I win either way."

Kendra could no longer endure his demands. When she refused to send more pictures, Woodson carried through with his threat—he distributed pornographic images of her to her followers on Instagram.

Kendra, tragically, was not Woodson's only victim—among his other targets were two 12-year-olds, Olivia and Faith. After Olivia complied with his initial demands for nude images, she participated in a live video call under threat that he would post the photos. Crying, Olivia complied with his instructions to take off her clothes. Though she did not realize it at the time, Woodson took screenshots of the video call, leading to even more explicit images of her naked body.

When Woodson infiltrated Faith's account, she "felt forced" to send nude pictures—Woodson promised that he would give her access to her account again if she did so. The images showed Faith's naked body with degrading words written across her chest and face. He kept asking for more, and when Faith eventually refused, he punished her by posting the photos she had already sent.

Thirteen-year-old Jamie was yet another victim. Woodson, along with another man, compelled her to produce lewd images along with a video depicting her naked, urinating in a cup, drinking the urine, and vomiting. She made the video as an alternative after refusing to comply with even more outrageous demands to produce videos of herself molesting a sibling and of dogs licking food from her genitalia. The men also extorted pornography from 13-year-old Carmen, including videos of her having sex with a friend and inserting foreign objects into her body. Celebrating Carmen's videos on Kik—"quite a win," read one message—the men bantered about which sexual acts they should force her to do next.

These children—Kendra, Olivia, Faith, Jamie, and Carmen—were among the victims who testified at Woodson's trial. But they make up only a small fraction of the victims targeted by Woodson and his co-conspirators. In fact, the investigation into Woodson and his team of extortionists has revealed more than 300 victims, including many who remained unidentified at the time of the trial.

B.

Some of Woodson's victims eventually reported his crimes to the police. Once they did, law enforcement officials linked the IP address associated with the extortionate messages to a physical address in Ashburn, Virginia, where Woodson lived with his family. Early one morning, just days after Woodson started his second round of contact with Kendra, a team of approximately 15 officers executed a search warrant at his family's townhouse. Woodson's brother Brandon was getting ready for work, and he opened the front door for the officers, who were wearing tactical gear and had their firearms drawn. One officer placed Brandon in handcuffs and seated him on the ground outside, while several others entered the townhouse to secure the rest of the residents. Still more officers remained outside and formed a perimeter around the townhouse.

By the time three officers entered 28-year-old Woodson's bedroom, they had holstered their weapons. Their entry awakened him; his assigned shift at work did not start until later that morning. Woodson was handcuffed and escorted into the living area, where he was joined by Brandon, his mother, and his sister.

Roughly 20 minutes later, while officers were still executing the search warrant, a detective arrived to interview the suspects. Not knowing who was responsible for the messages from the traced IP address, the detective decided to interview the two male residents: first Brandon, and then Woodson.

The detective wanted to conduct the interviews outside the home to have some privacy while the search continued. Because the weather was cold, he proposed sitting in the police van parked in front of the residence. Brandon agreed, and his handcuffs were removed before he walked to the van. When Brandon said that he had never downloaded Snapchat and allowed an on-the-spot search of his phone, the detective quickly determined that he was unlikely to be the culprit. The interview only took about 15 minutes.

Woodson's turn was next. He agreed to talk with the detective and followed him to the police van, uncuffed and without protest. Woodson sat in the front passenger seat, with the interviewing detective in the driver's seat and a second detective in the back seat. The detective told Woodson right away that he was not under arrest, that he was not charged with a crime, and that they were talking voluntarily. He did not, however, read the Miranda warnings.

Their conversation started off with a cordial discussion of video games, but it soon became more confrontational. The detective told Woodson that someone inside the townhouse had "done something a little shaky online"—and that he had "a very strong indication" that it was Woodson. When asked if he knew why the officers were there, Woodson immediately conceded: "Because of the pictures that have been on my phone." He initially hesitated to give up his cell phone password, but disclosed it after the detective stated that he was "not going to believe for a second" that he didn't know it.

From there, Woodson launched into an elaborate narrative—both detailing the operation and attempting to shift the blame for it....