United States of America v. Christopher Douglas Black

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-1425
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Christopher Douglas Black
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Southern District of Iowa - Eastern
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Submitted: January 17, 2025
Filed: February 25, 2025
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Before GRUENDER, BENTON, and ERICKSON, Circuit Judges.
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GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.
Christopher Black pleaded guilty to three counts of production of child
pornography, see 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) and (e), one count of receipt of child
pornography, see id. § 2252(a)(2) and (b)(1), and one count of possession of child

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pornography, see id. § 2252(a)(4)(B) and (b)(2). The district court1 sentenced him
to 720 months’ imprisonment. On appeal, Black argues that the district court erred
by denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained through two warrantless
searches. He also appeals the substantive reasonableness of his sentence. Finding
no reversible error, we affirm.
I.
In December 2021, the FBI began investigating the disappearance of a
fourteen-year-old girl, A.W. The FBI obtained A.W.’s phone location data, which
indicated that she was in Keokuk, Iowa. Investigators later learned that A.W.’s
phone number was being used by a man named Shelby Kelly, who obtained that
phone number after receiving a SIM card from Black. The FBI learned that Black
had been, and in some cases remained, the subject of investigations in Iowa and
Illinois for sex crimes involving juveniles. Black had previously been investigated
regarding the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old girl and was suspected of
filming juveniles in hotel rooms, offering cocaine to a juvenile, and having images
and videos of child pornography on his phone.
FBI agents discovered that a Facebook account associated with Black had
recently been logged into from an address in Keokuk. The address was an Airbnb
with two bookable rooms. The agents contacted the Airbnb owner, who told them
that one of the bookings was registered under a profile named “Andre Sanchez,”
whose profile picture one of the agents recognized as a photograph of Black.
Additionally, one of the guests checked in under the name “Christopher,” and a
vehicle registered to Black’s mother was parked under the carport. The Airbnb
owner told the FBI agents that the room booked by “Sanchez” was occupied by two
adult males and a female perhaps as young as fourteen. The other adult male
1 The Honorable Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, United States District Judge for
the Southern District of Iowa, adopting the Report and Recommendation of the
Honorable Stephen B. Jackson, Jr., Chief Magistrate Judge, United States District
Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

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occupant was later identified as Kelly. The FBI suspected that A.W. was the young
female occupant.
On January 5, 2022, FBI agents arrived at the Keokuk Airbnb to investigate.
The agents did not have a warrant to enter the room booked by “Sanchez,” but the
door was open and the agents could see two drinks and what appeared to be a
woman’s jacket or sweatshirt on the kitchen counter. An agent knocked on the door
and called out; nobody answered but the door opened further. The Airbnb owner
entered and checked the room while the agents waited outside the entrance. The
owner reported that nobody was present, but that the bathroom door was closed and
locked, and that after the owner knocked on the door, nobody answered. Concerned
that someone might have been inside the bathroom and in need of medical attention,
agents entered the room, found the bathroom key, and opened the bathroom door.
Nobody was inside, but one of the agents noticed a woman’s razor on the bathmat.
The agents then left the Airbnb.
Over the following weeks, the FBI continued its investigation and obtained
further information about A.W.’s disappearance. On January 11, an FBI agent
located Black (but not A.W.) outside his Keokuk residence and interviewed him.
Black acknowledged having stayed at the Keokuk Airbnb with Kelly and A.W., the
latter of whom he claimed he thought was around 20 years old, and that they had
watched television together.
The FBI also interviewed witnesses who suggested that A.W. was present at
the Keokuk Airbnb the day of the search but ran out after seeing agents coming. One
witness in particular heard Black state something to the effect that he needed to get
A.W. “out of town because the feds are looking for her.” Based on these witness
reports, the FBI believed that Black and A.W. were attempting to evade law
enforcement.
Other evidence suggested that Black tried to hide his location from law
enforcement. Airbnb records showed that “Andre Sanchez” made several rental

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reservations with overlapping dates. Weeks later, Black took control over a different
Airbnb profile under the name “Jason Gustavson.” The “Gustavson” account had
three active reservations, each of which the FBI began surveilling in hopes of
locating A.W.
On February 16, FBI agents positively identified Black alongside a female
who resembled A.W. in the backyard of an Airbnb in Minneapolis rented under the
“Gustavson” profile. After the two returned indoors, the FBI agents knocked on the
front door. Black answered and identified himself by name, and the agents detained
him immediately. The agents then entered the Airbnb—without a search warrant—
and the female emerged; she was positively identified as A.W. While indoors, the
agents saw in plain view, inter alia, sex toys, stained bedding, and possible drug
paraphernalia.
Afterwards, the FBI obtained a search warrant for the Minneapolis Airbnb.
Upon executing the warrant, agents seized Black’s phone which showed that he used
A.W. to produce child pornography on four occasions. The phone also contained
324 images and 115 videos depicting child pornography of other children, including
those as young as toddlers.
A grand jury indicted Black for three counts of production of child
pornography, one count of receipt of child pornography, and one count of possession
of child pornography. Black moved to suppress the evidence based upon the
warrantless entries into the Airbnbs in Keokuk and Minneapolis and from later
searches executed pursuant to warrants issued after those warrantless entries. The
magistrate judge found that the warrantless entries into the Keokuk and Minneapolis
Airbnbs were justified based on exigent circumstances. The district court accepted
the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and denied Black’s motion to
suppress.
On September 14, 2023, Black entered a conditional guilty plea, pleading
guilty to all counts but preserving his right to appeal the district court’s denial of his

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motion to suppress. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2). The district court sentenced him
to 720 months’ imprisonment, below the advisory guidelines term of 1,560 months’
imprisonment.2 Black appeals, challenging the denial of his motion to suppress and
the substantive reasonableness of his sentence.
II.
We begin with the motion to suppress. “When reviewing the denial of a
motion to suppress, we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and
its Fourth Amendment determination de novo.” United States v. Clay, 646 F.3d
1124, 1127 (8th Cir. 2011).
The Government argues that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless
searches of the Airbnbs. “Exigent circumstances include threats to an individual’s
life, a suspect’s imminent escape, the imminent destruction of evidence, or situations
where there is a compelling need for official action and there is no time to secure a
warrant.” Smith v. Kansas City, Mo. Police Dep’t, 586 F.3d 576, 580 (8th Cir. 2009)
(internal quotation marks omitted). Whether exigent circumstances existed is an
objective inquiry “focusing on what a reasonable, experienced police officer would
believe.” United States v. Quarterman, 877 F.3d 794, 797 (8th Cir. 2017). We
review a district court’s conclusion that exigent circumstances justified warrantless
entry de novo, “accepting the underlying factual findings unless they are clearly
erroneous.” United States v. Roberts, 824 F.3d 1145, 1146 (8th Cir. 2016).
The FBI agents had objectively reasonable bases for presuming that exigent
circumstances justified the warrantless search of the Keokuk Airbnb. A.W. was a
minor girl whom the FBI believed to be in the company of a man who had a history
of sexual interest in minors, who collected pornographic images of minors, and who
provided drugs to minors. Given this background, combined with the fact the
2 Black’s total offense level of 43 and criminal history category of I result in a
guidelines range of life imprisonment. However, given statutory maximums, his
guidelines range drops to 1,560 months. See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2 cmt. n.3(B).

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bathroom door was locked, the agents reasonably feared that A.W. might have been
unresponsive in the bathroom and in need of immediate medical attention. Concerns
about risk of injury are especially acute when the potential victim is a minor subject
to sexual exploitation. See United States v. Gilliam, 842 F.3d 801, 804 (2d Cir.
2016). The possible “threats” to A.W.’s “life . . . [and] compelling need for official
action” in a timely manner constituted exigent circumstances justifying the
warrantless entry into the Keokuk Airbnb. See Smith, 586 F.3d at 580.
Exigent circumstances also justified the warrantless search of the Minneapolis
Airbnb. By the time of the search, the FBI had learned that A.W. fled from the
Keokuk Airbnb to avoid detection. The FBI had heard a witness report that Black
stated that he needed to get A.W. “out of town because the feds are looking for her.”
Black also had multiple concurrent Airbnb bookings under a pseudonym. It was
apparent that Black and A.W. were attempting to avoid detection by the FBI. Before
knocking on the door of the Minneapolis Airbnb, the FBI had already positively
identified Black as the male occupant of the property, and the girl accompanying
him matched A.W.’s description. The warrantless entry was justified to prevent
Black and A.W. from fleeing or destroying evidence. See Smith, 586 F.3d at 580.
Given the exigent circumstances, the FBI’s warrantless searches did not violate the
Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the district court did not err in denying Black’s
motion to suppress evidence obtained from those searches.
We next address Black’s sentence. “We review a district court’s sentence in
two steps, first reviewing for significant procedural error, and second, if there is no
significant procedural error, we review for substantive reasonableness.” United
States v. Ayres, 929 F.3d 581, 582-83 (8th Cir. 2019). At sentencing, Black agreed
that the district court did not procedurally err by miscalculating the guidelines range,
and he makes no such challenge on appeal. Instead, Black argues that the guidelines
range, though calculated properly, overstates the seriousness of his offense. He
further contends that the district court’s decision to impose consecutive, instead of
concurrent, sentences for the separate counts of production of child pornography and
possession of child pornography—which a court may do in order for the total

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sentence to reach the guidelines range, see U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2(d)—led to a
substantively unreasonable sentence.
We review challenges to the substantive reasonableness of a sentence for
abuse of discretion. United States v. Maluoth, 121 F.4th 1158, 1163 (8th Cir. 2024).
“A district court abuses its discretion when it (1) fails to consider a relevant factor
that should have received significant weight; (2) gives significant weight to an
improper or irrelevant factor; or (3) considers only the appropriate factors but in
weighing those factors commits a clear error of judgment.” United States v.
Feemster, 572 F.3d 455, 461 (8th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
The district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Black to 720
months’ imprisonment. Black’s argument is effectively a policy challenge to the
district court’s refusal to vary further from the guidelines range. Black correctly
points out that a district court is permitted in appropriate circumstances to vary from
the guidelines if it disagrees with the policies underlying the guidelines, Pepper v.
United States, 562 U.S. 476, 501 (2011), and instead “tailor [its] sentence in light of
other statutory concerns,” such as “the factors listed in [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a).” Id.
at 490. Indeed, one such factor is the policy value of “impos[ing] a sentence
sufficient, but not greater than necessary” to achieve the goals of sentencing. 18
U.S.C. § 3553(a). But just because a district court may vary from the guidelines
does not mean that it must do so. See Maluoth, 121 F.4th at 1164. And when we
review the district court’s judgment in this respect on appeal, we must recognize that
“[t]he sentencing judge has greater familiarity with a case than an appellate court
and is therefore in a superior position to find facts and judge their import under
§ 3553(a).” See id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Additionally, the district
court already sentenced Black to a below-guidelines term, and “it is nearly
inconceivable” that a district court imposing a below-guidelines sentence “abused
its discretion in not varying downward still further.” United States v. Gifford, 991
F.3d 944, 947 (8th Cir. 2021). Accordingly, we detect no abuse of discretion by the
district court.

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III.
For the forgoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
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