United States v. Flanders

United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
October 20, 2006
Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
In the
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
_______________
m 05-10785
_______________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
VERSUS
MICHAEL DAVID FLANDERS,
Defendant-Appellant
_________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
______________________________
Before SMITH, GARZA, and CLEMENT,
Circuit Judges.
JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:
Michael Flanders appeals his child por-
nography conviction that followed his condi-
tional plea of guilty after the district court had
denied his motion to suppress evidence dis-
covered on his computer and storage drives
pursuant to the execution of a search warrant.
Because the executing officers’ reliance on the
validity of the search warrant was objectively
reasonable and thus in good faith, we affirm.
I.
On June 3, 2004, a state judge signed a
search warrant that permitted police to search
and seize, inter alia, computer equipment,
data and memory storage devices, computer
files, photographs, or any other type of media
that might be used to collect or depict persons

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younger than eighteen years of age engaging in
sexual conduct, found in Flanders’s house.
The police officer applying for the warrant
stated in an affidavit that he had probable
cause to believe “that Michael Flanders com-
mitted the offense of Aggravated Sexual As-
sault of a Child, a First Degree Felony[,] Texas
Penal Code section 22.021, and the offense of
Possession of Child Pornography, a Third
Degree Felony, Texas Penal Code section
43.26.” The affidavit included the following
information:
(1) The United States Immigration Cus-
toms Enforcement Agency discovered an
Internet chat log in which Flanders
described various sex acts that he had
performed on his two-year-old daughter
and that she had performed on him;
(2) Flanders’s daughter told a forensic
interviewer that “she had licked her daddy,
and that he had licked her,” and the daugh-
ter used anatomical drawings to indicate
that the licking had taken place on her and
her father’s genitals;
(3) Flanders’s wife told the police that
Flanders spends a lot of time on his com-
puter, visits adult pornography sites, and
chats with others on the Internet;
(4) Flanders’s wife told the police of an in-
cident in which Flanders took a digital pic-
ture of his daughter standing on the bed
nude after his wife took her out of the
shower1; and
(5) The affiant stated that based on his
training and over six years of experience as
a police officer, he knew “that persons who
sexually abuse children also collect and
keep child pornography as well as exchange
child pornography, and electronic writings,
with others who sexually exploit children.”
Based on evidence found on his computer
and storage drives pursuant to execution of the
warrant, Flanders was charged with six counts
of interstate receipt of child pornography in
violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(a)(2)(A) and
2 and one count of possession of child pornog-
raphy shipped through interstate commerce in
violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252A(a)(5)(B) and
2. He moved to suppress, arguing that the
warrant was not supported by probable cause.
The district court denied the motion, and pur-
suant to a plea agreement Flanders then condi-
tionally pleaded guilty to one count of inter-
state receipt of child pornography.
On appeal, Flanders contends that the mere
fact he allegedly had sexually abused his young
daughter does not create probable cause that
he possessed child pornography. Also, he as-
serts there was not probable cause that child
pornography would be located in his home.
The affidavit supporting the warrant, he
claims, was only a bare bones recital of the of-
ficer’s beliefs.
II.
When a defendant moves to suppress evi-
dence on the ground that the search warrant
was not supported by probable cause, “[p]rin-
ciples of judicial restraint and precedent dictate
that, in most cases, we should not reach the
probable cause issue if a decision on the ad-
missibility of evidence under the good-faith
exception [to the exclusionary rule] will re-
solve the matter.” United States v. Craig, 861
1 The affidavit states that Flanders’s wife was
unable to state which part of their daughter’s body
Flanders photographed. The photo in question was
neither discovered nor offered in evidence.

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F.2d 818, 820 (5th Cir. 1988). We deviate
from this scheme and proceed directly to the
probable cause inquiry only where “the resolu-
tion of a ‘novel question of law . . . is neces-
sary to guide future action by law enforcement
officers and magistrates.’” Id. at 820-21
(quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 264
(1983) (White, J., concurring)). This case
does not present a “novel question of law” but
involves only the application of established
Fourth Amendment principles to a given set of
facts, so we begin by determining whether the
good faith exception to the exclusionary rule
applies.2
We review de novo whether an officer’s re-
liance on a warrant was objectively reasonable
and accordingly in good faith. United States v.
Satterwhite, 980 F.2d 317, 321 (5th Cir.
1992). Flanders avers that the affidavit was so
lacking in indicia of probable cause that it ren-
ders official belief in the existence of probable
cause objectively unreasonable. We disagree.
First, the affidavit contains sufficient infor-
mation that Flanders possessed child pornog-
raphy for an officer reasonably to rely on the
judge’s probable-cause determination. To ne-
gate Flanders’s charge that this is a bare bones
affidavit that cannot support the warrant, the
affidavit must provide the judge “with facts,
and not mere conclusions, from which he
could determine probable cause.” Satterwhite,
980 F.2d at 321.
The affidavit presented the judge with suf-
ficient facts, because it recounted (1) Flan-
ders’s wife’s statement that Flanders took a
picture of his daughter while she was naked
and (2) the forensic interviewer’s conclusion,
based on the daughter’s statements, that Flan-
ders had sexually exploited her. The affiant’s
statement that he knew that people who ex-
ploit children also possess child pornography
understandably leads Flanders to conclude that
the inference from child exploitation to child
pornography was the only basis on which the
affidavit supports the search for child pornog-
raphy. The affidavit, however, does not re-
quire this inferenceSSthe act of digitally pho-
tographing a naked child whom the defendant
had allegedly previously sexually exploited
provides direct support for the search for child
pornography.
Where an affidavit states, inter alia, that a
defendant has taken sexually explicit photo-
graphs of a minor, the affidavit supports a
search for child pornography. United States v.
Payne, 341 F.3d 393, 401 (5th Cir. 2003).
Unlike the affidavit in Payne, the instant affi-
davit here states it was unknown whether the
pictures were sexually explicit, but Flanders’s
alleged past sexual abuse of his daughter,
coupled with his decision to take a digital pho-
tograph of that child naked, provided enough
information for an officer reasonably to believe
he could execute the warrant.3
2 If an officer’s “reliance on the magistrate’s
probable-cause determination and on the technical
sufficiency of the warrant he issues [is] objectively
reasonable,” a court need not suppress the fruits.
United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922 (1984).
3 This court does not require that an affidavit
supporting a warrant to search for child pornogra-
phy contain specific, individualized information
that a defendant possesses child pornography. In
United States v. Froman, 355 F.3d 882, 890-91
(5th Cir. 2004), we upheld a finding of probable
cause to search the defendant’s computer and other
electronic equipment for child pornography, stating
that “it is common sense that a person who volun-
tarily joins a group such as Candyman [an online
child pornography club], remains a member of the
(continued...)

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Second, the affidavit contains sufficient in-
formation that an officer reasonably could rely
on a judge’s probable-cause determination that
Flanders’s home computer and electronic stor-
age contained child pornography. We start
with the general observation that “‘few places
are more convenient than one’s residence for
use in planning criminal activities and hiding
fruits of a crime.’” Id. (quoting United States
v. Green, 634 F.2d 222, 226 (5th Cir. Unit B
Jan.1981)). Beyond this, the affidavit provid-
ed information that established Flanders’s
home as a probable site for his possession of
child pornography: His wife told police that
he used his computer at home to view adult
pornography and to chat on the internet; he
previously used the internet to communicate
about his sexual conduct with a minor; and he
photographed his naked daughter at home us-
ing a digital camera.
The officers’ reliance on the warrant, sup-
ported by the affidavit, was objectively rea-
sonable, and the good-faith exception to the
exclusionary rule therefore applies to render
the evidence admissible regardless of the val-
idity of the warrant.4
The judgment of conviction is AFFIRMED.
3(...continued)
group for approximately a month without cancel-
ling his subscription, and uses screen names that
reflect his interest in child pornography, would
download such pornography from the website and
have it in his possession.”
4 Because the good faith exception to the exclu-
sionary rule applies, we do not reach the question
whether the warrant was supported by probable
cause.

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