USA v. Alan Johnson

Filing

Opinion issued by court as to Appellant Alan Robert Johnson in 14-12143, Appellant Jennifer A. Sparks in 14-12075. Decision: Affirmed. Opinion type: Published. Opinion method: Signed. The opinion is also available through the Court's Opinions page at this link http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions. [14-12143, 14-12075]

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[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 14-12143
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 2:12-cr-00092-JES-DNF-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
ALAN ROBERT JOHNSON,
Defendant - Appellant.
________________________
No. 14-12075
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 2:12-cr-00092-JES-DNF-2

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
JENNIFER A. SPARKS,

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Defendant - Appellant.
________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
(December 1, 2015)
Before MARTIN and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and COOGLER, * District
Judge.
ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge:
Defendant-Appellants Alan Robert Johnson and Jennifer A. Sparks’s day did
not start well for them. They left their cell phone at a Walmart store. But this
wasn’t just any cell phone; Johnson and Sparks’s phone stored hundreds of images
and videos of child pornography that they had made using Sparks’s friend’s fouryear-old child—and Johnson was already a registered sex offender. So Defendants
must have felt pretty relieved when they learned that Linda Vo, an employee of the
Walmart where Defendants left their phone, had found it and that she agreed to
return it.
But Vo decided to look at the contents of the phone, which were not
password-protected, after speaking with Sparks and before actually meeting her.
Upon discovering the images of child pornography, Vo resolved not to return the

*

Honorable L. Scott Coogler, United States District Judge for the Northern District of
Alabama, sitting by designation.
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phone. Instead, unbeknownst to Defendants, she arranged for it to be turned in to
law enforcement.
When Vo failed to meet Sparks with the phone as the two had previously
agreed, Defendants knew how to find Vo to get their phone back. But Defendants
did not return to their Walmart store and look for Vo. Nor did they ask for
Walmart’s assistance in obtaining their phone, found in its store, by its employee.
They also did not file a report with Walmart or the police complaining that Vo
would not return their phone, despite their requests.

Instead, they made a

conscious decision to stop pursuing the phone, even though they knew how to get
it back with reasonable effort.
That decision—whether because Defendants hoped that Vo would not report
them if they did not continue to seek the phone or because Defendants simply
thought recovery of the phone was not worth their reasonable effort—can be
viewed only as a deliberate decision to abandon the phone. Because Defendants
abandoned their phone within three days of having lost it, they lack standing to
challenge law enforcement’s 23-day delay between recovering the phone and
obtaining a search warrant to search it.
As for searches conducted within the three-day period before Defendants
abandoned their interest in the phone, we find no reversible error in the district

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court’s denials of Defendants’ suppression motions. We also deny Johnson’s
challenges to his sentence.
I.
Johnson and Sparks were indicted by a grand jury for possession of child
pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(a)(4)(b), (b)(2), and 2 (Count 1),
and for production of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(a), (e)
and 2 (Counts 2 and 3). Both Johnson and Sparks moved to suppress evidence.
Following an evidentiary hearing, a United States magistrate judge
submitted a report to the district court recommending that the district court deny
the motions to suppress.1 After reviewing a transcript of the testimony and hearing
argument before the magistrate judge, the district court held a supplemental
hearing to resolve conflicting testimony proffered by six witnesses during the
initial hearing before the magistrate judge. The district court ultimately denied the
motions to suppress.
Johnson and Sparks each then pled guilty to Count 2 under plea agreements
that reserved each’s right to appeal the denial of the motions to suppress. Johnson
was sentenced to 600 months’ imprisonment after the district court applied the
statutory enhancement set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 2251(e) based on Johnson’s prior

1

Johnson also filed a motion to suppress statements, which the court addressed at that
same hearing and subsequently denied. Johnson does not appeal its denial.
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federal convictions for distribution and possession of child pornography. Sparks
was sentenced to 360 months’ imprisonment.
Johnson and Sparks now appeal the denial of their motions to suppress.
Additionally, Johnson appeals the application of the statutory enhancement to his
sentence.
II.2
A.

The Private Search

Both Johnson’s and Sparks’s convictions, and this appeal, can be traced to
an HTC smart phone that they mistakenly left at a Walmart store located in Cape
Coral, Florida, on or about June 4, 2012.3 Linda Vo, a Walmart employee, found
the phone.
After Sparks sent a text message that she describes as having “urgently
requested” the return of the phone, Vo called the number indicated in the text
message. 4 During the ensuing conversation, Sparks made a peculiar request of Vo,
asking her not to turn the phone over to customer service but instead to hold onto it
until Sparks could pick it up directly from Vo.

2

Where factual conflicts in the record exist, we take our facts from the district court’s
factual findings. See infra at Section III.B.1.
3
Sparks maintains that the phone was left at Walmart two days earlier, on June 2, 2012.
The disagreement over the date on which the phone was lost does not affect our analysis.
4
As the district court noted, what Vo did with the phone is not entirely clear because Vo
was not called as a witness at the evidentiary hearings. Vo’s then-fiancé and now-husband,
David Widner, did testify, and his testimony provided most of the basis for what is known about
Vo’s actions.
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After making arrangements to return the phone, Vo looked at digital
photographs stored in a photo album on the phone, apparently in an attempt to
identify the woman to whom she was planning to return the phone. The phone was
not password protected, so Vo was able to access the content stored on the phone.
She discovered what Widner later described as “questionable” images. Vo told
Widner that she had seen some “pretty weird” pictures involving a young girl who
was sometimes nude. Widner decided to look at the pictures himself to determine
whether the phone should be turned over to the police.
Vo showed him the images on the cell phone and told him about a video
that was also stored on the phone. In the phone’s photo-album application, Vo
accessed a screen that displayed several smaller “thumbnail” images. Vo scrolled
through the album as Widner looked on, and Widner was able to see in thumbnail
format all of the images contained within the album. Vo then showed Widner a
full-size image in which three prepubescent girls stood naked in the middle of a
room in what Widner thought was a posed and sexually suggestive manner.
Widner also testified that Vo showed him another full-size image that focused on a
young girl’s nude vaginal area and stomach, which was covered in a substance that
appeared to be semen. After Vo finished showing Widner the images, Vo gave
Widner the cell phone to take to law enforcement.

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B.

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The Warrantless Police Search

On June 4, 2012, Widner took the phone to the Fort Myers Police
Department (“FMPD”). 5

When he arrived, he first spoke with a Community

Service Aide (“CSA”) 6 named Cassie Coleman, who had been stationed at the
front booth. Widner stated that he wanted to file a report about cell-phone images
that he believed to be child pornography. He scrolled through the entire album he
had previously viewed with Vo to show Coleman the photos he thought were
questionable, but as soon as he located one and handed the phone to Coleman, the
phone’s battery died, and the phone turned off.
Widner then charged the phone at the FMPD. While the cell phone was
recharging, CSA Sarah Gallegos and CSA trainee Amanda Janetzke introduced
themselves to Widner, and Widner explained how he had come to possess the
phone.
Once the cell phone was sufficiently charged, Widner scrolled through it to
show Gallegos and Janetzke the images he believed constituted child pornography.
In doing this, Widner scrolled through the entirety of the album in thumbnail form,
pausing several times to show Gallegos and Janetzke full-size images. Gallegos
remembered some of the specific images that Widner showed her, including the
5

Originally, Widner brought the phone to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office in downtown
Fort Myers. That Sheriff’s Office instructed him to take the phone to the FMPD.
6
CSAs are civilians, but for purposes of its Fourth Amendment analysis, the district court
treated CSAs as government officials.
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image of the young naked female child with what appeared to be semen on her
stomach. Widner also showed Gallegos a video of a young girl eating ice cream.
While Widner displayed the images to Gallegos and Janetzke, text-message
notifications appeared on the screen. No CSAs or FMPD personnel opened the
text-message application or read the text messages during this encounter. Gallegos
called Vo about the phone, and she advised Gallegos that a woman had been
sending text messages to the found phone, insisting that she needed the phone back
immediately.

Vo did not know the woman’s last name or other identifying

information.
Gallegos and Janetzke contacted Detective-Sergeant Brian O’Reilly to notify
him that the cell phone that Widner had brought to the station contained images of
a pornographic nature involving children. Gallegos then gave the cell phone to
O’Reilly and showed him some of the images that Widner had shown her.
O’Reilly viewed the images himself to verify that, in fact, child pornography was
on the phone. In addition to the images that Gallegos showed O’Reilly, O’Reilly
briefly looked at two videos that were stored within the same album. One of the
videos was that of the girl eating ice cream, which Widner had previously viewed.
Widner had not watched the second video.

As for the images that O’Reilly

surveyed, O’Reilly looked at only those images contained within the same album
that Widner had viewed.
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After concluding that the phone contained child pornography, O’Reilly
turned the phone off and submitted it to evidence. He then contacted the Cape
Coral Police Department, since, by that time, it had been established that Vo had
found the phone at the Walmart located in Cape Coral, not Fort Myers. O’Reilly
instructed Gallegos to prepare an offense report so that he could take the report and
the cell phone to the Cape Coral Police Department.
On June 5, 2012, O’Reilly logged the cell phone out of evidence and
delivered it to the Cape Coral Police Department. He informed the Cape Coral
Police Department that the phone had been found at a Walmart located in Cape
Coral and that it contained images of child pornography.
C.

The Application for and Execution of the First and Second Search
Warrants

On June 7, 2012, Agent Patricia Enterline, a police officer employed by the
Cape Coral Police Department who had been assigned to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s (“FBI”) Innocent Images Task Force (“Task Force”), received a
phone call as she was about to board a plane to attend training in another city. The
call was from Sergeant Steve Barnes, the sergeant in charge of the major-crimes
unit of the Cape Coral Police Department. Barnes told Enterline that she was
assigned to a case involving a cell phone that may or may not contain child
pornography. He also explained that the cell phone was found at a Walmart and
turned in to law enforcement.
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Enterline was the only Cape Coral Police Department officer assigned to the
FBI Task Force. In Enterline’s absence, the three other Task Force officers who
might have been available to investigate the cell phone were not able to check the
cell phone out of the Cape Coral Police Department evidence room.
Enterline returned from her training late Friday night, on June 8, 2012, and
left for another scheduled training class located in Maryland on Sunday, June 10,
2012. She got back from that training on Saturday, June 16, 2012. On Monday,
June 18, 2012, Enterline checked the cell phone out of the Cape Coral Police
Department evidence room and transferred it to the FBI. For the rest of that day,
Enterline was working with an Assistant United States Attorney on another case.
The next day, June 19, 2012, Enterline removed the cell phone’s protective case to
procure the cell phone’s serial number. When she did that, she found three small
pieces of paper, none of which provided information regarding ownership of the
cell phone. Enterline did not pursue a search warrant on June 19, 2012, because
she was leaving the next day for additional training on the other side of the state.
When Enterline returned from her training on June 26, 2012, she attempted
to contact O’Reilly and a state-court judge, but she was unable to reach either. On
June 27, 2012, Enterline prepared an application for a search warrant and a
supporting affidavit for the cell phone. To do so, Enterline did not turn on the cell
phone or view any images but instead attempted to contact Vo and Widner by
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telephone. When she could reach neither, she called O’Reilly, who provided
descriptions of the images he saw that he believed constituted child pornography.
Enterline then presented the search warrant application and supporting
affidavit to a state-court judge. The application did not attach any images. Instead,
the affidavit included O’Reilly’s descriptions of images that he had viewed on the
cell phone. The state-court judge found probable cause and signed the warrant on
June 27, 2012.
That same day, Enterline and her colleague Matt DeShazo, a forensic
examiner, conducted a forensic examination of the phone. Enterline determined
from data stored on the cell phone that Johnson owned the phone. Based on the
information retrieved from the cell-phone search, she then obtained from the same
judge a search warrant to search Johnson’s home, which Johnson shared with
Sparks.
Later that same day, June 27, 2012, Enterline and another law-enforcement
officer went to Johnson’s home to execute the residence warrant, and they
encountered Johnson.

Johnson confirmed that he had lost the cell phone at

Walmart. He also stated that within three days of having lost the phone, he filed an
insurance claim with his phone company and received a replacement phone. He
gave the replacement to Sparks. Additionally, by this time, Johnson had already
purchased another phone for himself.
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In all, 1,322 sexually explicit still images and 45 sexually explicit videos
that constituted child pornography were recovered from the cell phone. Another
508 sexually explicit images and 58 sexually explicit videos constituting child
pornography were found on items within Johnson’s residence.
III.
Johnson and Sparks contend that the district court’s denial of their respective
motions to suppress should be reversed. They both argue that the district court
clearly erred by finding that the warrantless search of the cell phone by the FMPD
did not exceed the scope of the search conducted by Vo and Widner. They also
assert that Enterline’s delay in obtaining the search warrant unreasonably
interfered with their possessory interests in the cell phone. Additionally, Sparks
contends that the district court should have granted her motion to suppress because
Enterline did not attach actual images to the search-warrant affidavit and instead
relied upon O’Reilly’s descriptions. We do not find merit in any of Johnson’s and
Sparks’s arguments.
A.

Standard of Review

The review of the denial of a motion to suppress presents a mixed question
of law and fact. See United States v. Mathis, 767 F.3d 1264, 1274-75 (11th Cir.
2014); United States v. Laist, 702 F.3d 608, 612 (11th Cir. 2012). We review the
district court’s findings of fact for clear error and it rulings of law and application
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of the law to the facts de novo. See Mathis, 767 F.3d at 1274-75; Laist, 702 F.3d at
612. With regard to the district court’s factual findings, only if a review of the
record leaves a “definite and firm conviction that a mistake” has been made do we
conclude that a district court clearly erred. United States v. White, 335 F.3d 1314,
1319 (11th Cir. 2003) (citation and quotation marks omitted). Because the district
court personally observes the testimony and is in the best position to evaluate
witnesses’ credibility, “where . . . testimonies are in direct conflict . . . , a ‘trial
judge’s . . . choice of whom to believe is conclusive on the appellate court unless
the judge credits exceedingly improbable testimony.’” United States v. RamirezChilel, 289 F.3d 744, 749 (11th Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. CardonaRivera, 904 F.2d 1149, 1152 (7th Cir. 1990)).
In applying the law to the facts while reviewing a motion to suppress, we
construe the facts in the light most favorable to the party that prevailed in the
district court—in this case, the government. See Mathis, 767 F.3d at 1274-75;
Laist, 702 F.3d at 612. We may affirm the district court’s judgment on any basis
supported by the record. Miller v. Harget, 458 F.3d 1251, 1256 (11th Cir. 2006).
And even if the district court erred in denying a motion to suppress, we must
uphold the conviction unless the error was not harmless beyond a reasonable
doubt. United States v. Alexander, 835 F.2d 1406, 1411 (11th Cir. 1988); see also
Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S. Ct. 824 (1967).
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The Private-Search Doctrine

The Fourth Amendment provides that the “right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. The protection the Fourth
Amendment affords, however, extends to governmental action only; “it is wholly
inapplicable ‘to a search or seizure, even an unreasonable one, effected by a private
individual not acting as an agent of the Government or with the participation or
knowledge of any governmental official.’” United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S.
109, 113, 104 S. Ct. 1652, 1656 (1984) (quoting Walter v. United States, 447 U.S.
649, 662, 100 S. Ct. 2395, 2404 (1980) (Blackmun, J., dissenting)). So once an
individual’s expectation of privacy in particular information has been frustrated by
a private individual, the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit law enforcement’s
subsequent use of that information, even if obtained without a warrant. Id. at 116,
104 S. Ct. at 1656; see id. at 117, 104 S. Ct. at 1658-59. As a result, a warrantless
law-enforcement search conducted after a private search violates the Fourth
Amendment only to the extent to which it is broader than the scope of the
previously occurring private search. Id. at 115, 104 S. Ct. at 1656; see also United
States v. Garcia-Bercovich, 582 F.3d 1234, 1238 (11th Cir. 2009).
Johnson and Sparks maintain that the warrantless search of the cell phone
conducted by O’Reilly violated their Fourth Amendment rights. Specifically, they
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argue that the government failed to establish that the images observed by O’Reilly
at the FMPD, which formed the basis for and led to the issuance of the search
warrants, were within the scope of the prior search that Vo and Widner conducted.
As a result, Johnson and Sparks contend, all of the evidence that was obtained by
executing the warrants should be suppressed. 7 This argument has two components:
(1) the district court clearly erred when it determined, as a matter of fact, that the
scope of the private search included all images contained within one digital photo
album stored in the photo application of the cell phone and when it found that
O’Reilly viewed content stored only within that same album; and (2) the district
court erred as a matter of law by concluding that O’Reilly’s search did not exceed
the scope of the private search when O’Reilly watched a video not viewed by
Widner, which was stored within the same album that Widner had scrolled
through.
1.
Regarding the alleged error of fact, the district court found that Widner had,
on at least three separate occasions, viewed the entirety of one photo album stored
on the phone. First, Widner initially saw all of the images contained in the single
photo album—at least in thumbnail format—when Widner scrolled through the
7

“[T]he exclusionary rule reaches not only primary evidence obtained as a direct result of
an illegal search or seizure . . . but also evidence later discovered and found to be derivative of an
illegality or ‘fruit of the poisonous tree.’” Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 804, 104 S. Ct.
3380, 3385 (1984) (citations omitted).
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whole album while looking at the cell-phone images with Vo at Walmart. Widner
scrolled through the entirety of the same photo album a second time before
handing the phone over to Coleman. And third, Widner scrolled through and
therefore viewed all of the images in the album when he looked at them with
Gallegos and Janetzke.
Widner’s testimony supported these findings and demonstrated that Widner
was able to discern the images of the photos in the album by reviewing them in
thumbnail format.

For example, Widner testified that he “saw the little

thumbnails” and that his wife, using the thumbnails of the images, showed him
“where [the potential images of child pornography] start[ed] and . . . where they
start[ed] getting worse.” Widner also explained that, while at the FMPD, he
searched for the images he had previously viewed by looking at the thumbnails. In
addition, Widner described the album as containing a “sequence [of pictures], like
taken back to back,” and stated that he “could see the images as they passed.”
As for the videos, although Widner testified that he did not view any videos
stored within the album, the court credited Gallegos’s testimony that Widner had
showed her a video of a girl eating ice cream. In explaining why, the court stated
that after considering the witnesses’ demeanor, their testimony, and the factors
listed in Basic Instruction 5 of the Eleventh Circuit Pattern Criminal Jury
Instructions, it did “not find that Widner [was] not telling the truth as he
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remember[ed] it, but [did] find that he [was] inaccurate” regarding the viewing of
the video. We cannot say that the testimony that the district court chose to credit
was “exceedingly improbable,” Ramirez-Chilel, 289 F.3d at 749, or otherwise
clearly erroneous.
With regard to the scope of the search performed by O’Reilly, the district
court concluded that O’Reilly observed images contained within the same photo
album that Widner had already viewed in its entirety. Nothing in the record
contradicts this conclusion or even casts aspersions on it.

To the contrary,

O’Reilly specifically testified that he looked at only those images contained in a
single photo album, and his description of the thumbnails of the photos contained
in that album matched the contents of the album that Widner had viewed. The
district court’s factual findings are amply supported by the record, and we find no
clear error in any of the district court’s challenged factual conclusions.
2.
Next, we consider Johnson and Sparks’s second argument—that the district
court erred as a matter of law by concluding that O’Reilly’s search did not exceed
the scope of the private search. To the extent that O’Reilly viewed the second
video, which was stored within the same album that Widner had scrolled through
but which Widner did not view, we agree with Johnson and Sparks that O’Reilly
exceeded the scope of Widner’s private search. But we nevertheless conclude that
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the error had no effect on the state court’s determination of probable cause
supporting the issuance of the two search warrants.

We therefore affirm the

district court’s denial of Defendants’ motions to suppress.
The district court relied on United States v. Simpson, 904 F.2d 607 (11th Cir.
1990), in holding that O’Reilly’s viewing of the second video did not exceed the
scope of Widner’s search, even though Widner had not reviewed that particular
video. Though we find Simpson to be analogous to the facts here as they regard
O’Reilly’s review of the photos and the video that Widner had previously seen, we
conclude that Simpson cannot justify O’Reilly’s viewing of the second video.
In Simpson, FedEx employees opened a package that was missing an address
label to try to determine a destination for the package. Id. at 610. A company
security officer viewed four videotapes from the package and concluded that they
contained sexually explicit material in which some of the actors appeared to be
minors. See id. An Assistant United States Attorney and an FBI agent later
viewed the same four videotapes. See id. We held that the government officials
“did not exceed the scope of the prior private searches for Fourth Amendment
purposes simply because they took more time and were more thorough than the
Federal Express agents.” Id. at 610.
We agree that under Simpson, O’Reilly’s review of the photos and the video
that Widner watched did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Though O’Reilly
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may have looked at some of the photos and the video more closely than did
Widner, as with the videotapes in Simpson, the private party’s earlier viewing of
the same images and video insulated law enforcement’s later, more thorough
review of them from transgressing the Fourth Amendment.
But with respect to the second video, which Widner never watched,
O’Reilly’s review exceeded—not replicated—the breadth of the private search.
Nothing in Simpson provides a safe harbor for a governmental search of materials
beyond the scope of a private search.
We also have serious doubts that approving of O’Reilly’s viewing of the
second video when no private party had first watched it would be consistent with
the reasoning in Riley v. California, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2489-90
(2014). In Riley, the Supreme Court held that law enforcement must obtain a
search warrant to search a cell phone seized incident to arrest, unless exigent
circumstances apply.

Id. at 2494-95.

In reaching this conclusion, the Court

emphasized that cell phones “hold for many Americans ‘the privacies of life.’” Id.
(citation omitted). It further observed the tremendous storage capacity of cell
phones and the broad range of types of information that cell phones generally
contain, suggesting that a search warrant for a cell phone must specify what part or
parts of the information contained on it may be searched. Id. at 2489. While
Widner’s private search of the cell phone might have removed certain information
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from the Fourth Amendment’s protections, it did not expose every part of the
information contained in the cell phone. Here, no search warrant was obtained,
and no exception to the search-warrant requirement excused O’Reilly’s viewing of
the second video.
3.
Nevertheless, we find no reversible error in the denial of the motions to
suppress. The government subsequently obtained a valid search warrant to search
the cell phone, based upon an affidavit that did not include any reference to
O’Reilly’s review of the second video.8 Instead, the affidavit described only the
photos and the first video, which Widner had previously reviewed:
The images begin with a naked adult white male and
female and several pictures of a white male penis. The
pictures progress into a series of images and a video of a
white female toddler eating an ice cream cone. Sgt.
O’Reilly said that he then observed a series of pictures of
what appeared to be the same toddler female on the
beach in her bathing suit, as the pictures progress the
images zoom in on the toddler’s buttocks making it the
focal point of the image. The next series of images also
appear to be the same toddler child asleep wearing a pair
of panties and a shirt, as the pictures progress the images
zoom into the vaginal area of the toddler’s panties as she
is sleeping and her legs are spread apart.
8

The search warrant was obtained on June 27, 2012. By that time, Johnson and Sparks
had long since abandoned the cell phone. See infra at Section III.C.2. As a result, they lacked
standing to contest the June 27, 2012, search warrant. United States v. Winchester, 916 F.2d
601, 603 (11th Cir. 1990) (standing to challenge a search is measured at the time of the search).
But even if Johnson and Sparks enjoyed standing to contest the search warrant issued on June 27,
2012, their challenges could not have succeeded for the reasons set forth above.
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Sgt. O’Reilly then described images of a naked female
toddler sitting on a toilet, naked toddler males standing
beside each other exposing their genitals and an image of
what appeared to be a naked prepubescent female lying
down. The image depicts the child from the waist down
and focuses on her vaginal and stomach area. Sgt.
O’Reilly describes a substance on the stomach of the
child in the image that appears to be semen.
This affidavit established probable cause that the cell phone contained evidence of
criminal activity.
As we have explained, “[p]robable cause to support a search warrant exists
when the totality of the circumstances allow a conclusion that there is a fair
probability of finding contraband or evidence at a particular location.” United
States v. Brundidge, 170 F.3d 1350, 1352 (11th Cir. 1999). Judges must “make a
practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in
the affidavit before him including the ‘veracity’ and ‘basis of knowledge’ of
persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband
or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” Illinois v. Gates, 462
U.S. 213, 238, 103 S. Ct. 2317, 2332 (1983). “Observations of fellow officers of
the Government engaged in a common investigation are plainly a reliable basis for
a warrant applied for by one of their number.” United States v. Kirk, 781 F.2d
1498, 1505 (11th Cir. 1986) (citation omitted). When determining whether a
search-warrant affidavit established probable cause, due weight is given to

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inferences drawn from the facts by the issuing judge and local law-enforcement
officers. Mathis, 767 F.3d at 1275 (citation omitted).
The affidavit supporting the search of the phone allowed the court to find
probable cause. It described photographs of naked men, women, and children,
including close-ups of private body parts, and culminated in a description of a
photo that focused on a young child’s naked vagina and stomach, covered in a fluid
that appeared to be semen. This was more than enough to allow a judge, relying
on common sense, to determine that it was fairly probable that the phone contained
evidence of images depicting a sexual performance by a child, in violation of Fla.
Stat. § 827.071.9
Nor do we agree with Sparks that the affidavit contained insufficient
probable cause since it did not attach copies of the photographs that it described.
An issuing judge need not personally view photographs or images which are
alleged to be contraband if a reasonably specific affidavit describing the contents

9

Fla Stat. § 827.071(5)(a) provides, “It is unlawful for any person to knowingly possess,
control, or intentionally view a[n] . . . image . . . which, in whole or in part, he or she knows to
include any sexual conduct by a child.” In relevant part, “sexual conduct” is defined as
actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse,
sexual bestiality, masturbation, or sadomasochistic abuse; actual
lewd exhibition of the genitals; actual physical contact with a
person's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if
such person is a female, breast, with the intent to arouse or gratify
the sexual desire of either party; or any act or conduct which
constitutes sexual battery or simulates that sexual battery is being
or will be committed.
Fla. Stat. § 827.071(1)(h)
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can provide an adequate basis to establish probable cause. See New York v. P.J.
Video, Inc., 475 U.S. 868, 873-74, 106 S. Ct. 1610, 1614 (1986); United States v.
Lowe, 516 F.3d 580, 586 (7th Cir. 2008); United States v. Chrobak, 289 F.3d 1043,
1045 (8th Cir. 2002). The descriptions here were not vague conclusions that the
phone contained images of child pornography; they objectively and specifically
stated the contents of the photos, and Enterline swore to these descriptions under
oath.
Indeed, Sparks does not challenge the descriptions as inaccurate; she
complains instead that the judge who issued the warrant did not personally view
the photos. But the affidavit’s descriptions, in and of themselves, established the
child-pornographic nature of the images. Because the descriptions independently
demonstrated probable cause for possession of child pornography, the judge was
not required to actually look at the photos.
C.

The Effect of a Delay in Obtaining a Search Warrant on a Possessory
Interest

Johnson and Sparks also challenge the district court’s conclusion that
Enterline’s delay in obtaining the initial search warrant for the cell phone did not
unreasonably interfere with Johnson’s and Sparks’s possessory interests in the
phone.

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Johnson and Sparks concede the legality of the initial seizure10 of the cell
phone by the FMPD after it had viewed images on the phone, even though the
phone was seized without a warrant. As we have discussed, the phone carried
images of child pornography, which constituted contraband.

“[I]t is

constitutionally reasonable for law enforcement officials to seize ‘effects’ . . .
without a warrant [when] probable cause [exists] to believe they contain
contraband.” Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 121-22, 104 S. Ct. at 1660.
But “a seizure lawful at its inception can nevertheless violate the Fourth
Amendment because its manner of execution unreasonably infringes possessory
interests protected by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on ‘unreasonable
searches.’” Id. at 124, 104 S. Ct. at 1662. So if, after seizing an item, law
enforcement unreasonably delays obtaining a warrant to search the item, a
reasonable seizure can become unreasonable. United States v. Mitchell, 565 F.3d
1347, 1350 (11th Cir. 2009). Usually, “the reasonableness determination will
reflect a careful balancing of governmental and private interests.” Soldal v. Cook
Cty., 506 U.S. 56, 71, 113 S. Ct. 538, 549 (1992) (quotation marks and citation
omitted); see Illinois v. McArthur, 531 U.S. 326, 331, 121 S. Ct. 946, 950 (2001)

10

Where “governmental authorities exert dominion and control over [an effect] for their
own purposes . . . a ‘seizure’ [has occurred], though not necessarily an unreasonable one.”
Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 120 n.18, 104 S. Ct. at 1660 n.18. Property need not be seized from the
immediate custody and control of the owner to qualify as a “seizure.” United States v. Place,
462 U.S. 696, 705, 103 S. Ct. 2637, 2643 (1983).
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(“[R]ather than employing a per se rule of unreasonableness, [courts should]
balance the privacy-related and law enforcement-related concerns to determine if
the intrusion was reasonable.”).
Here, the district court employed this balancing approach and concluded that
the delay in obtaining the search warrant for the cell phone was reasonable. First,
the district court opined that “[l]aw enforcement was not particularly diligent in
pursuing its investigation of the images on the cell phone” because attending
training is not typically a sufficient justification for a three-week delay in obtaining
a warrant and because the “search warrant application was not complex or timeconsuming.”
But it weighed these determinations against its finding that Johnson’s and
Sparks’s possessory interests in the phone were “greatly diminished” for a number
of reasons: (1) the phone had been lost and retrieved by a private person; (2) the
phone was not password protected; (3) two private citizens and several lawenforcement officials had already viewed images contained on the phone; (4) from
that point forward, neither defendant would have been able to retrieve the phone
because it contained contraband and was itself derivative contraband; and (5) the
defendants replaced the cell phone within a couple of days. Based on the weighing
of these factors, the court concluded that the government’s legitimate interest in

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holding the cell phone that it had already determined contained contraband
outweighed Johnson’s and Sparks’s interests in the phone.
Johnson and Sparks contend that the district court erred in finding that the
23-day delay between law enforcement’s seizure of the phone and its obtaining of
a search warrant was not unreasonable. In support, they rely on United States v.
Mitchell, 565 F.3d 1347 (11th Cir. 2009)—where we held that a 21-day delay was
unreasonable—and attempt to distinguish United States v. Laist, 702 F.3d 608
(11th Cir. 2012)—where we held that a 25-day delay 11 was reasonable.
We do not reach the issue of whether the 23-day period between the seizure
of the phone on June 4 and the obtaining of a search warrant for it on June 27 was
unreasonable. Johnson and Sparks lost standing to contest the length of the 23-day
delay because they abandoned their possessory interests in the phone by, at the
latest, June 7, 2012.12 And the, at most, three-day period during which they had
standing to contest the length of the delay was not unreasonable under the
circumstances of this case.

11

In actuality, the delay in Laist lasted from March 12 until April 7—a delay of 26 days
(or 27 if both the first and last days are counted).
12
Johnson stated that he replaced the seized phone three days after its disappearance.
Johnson and Sparks allege that Sparks lost the phone on June 2, though Widner suggested that
the phone was found on June 4. If Johnson replaced the phone on June 5, at most, only a oneday period elapsed between the FMPD’s seizure of the phone and Johnson’s and Sparks’s
abandonment of the phone.
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1.
Article III of the Constitution extends the jurisdiction of federal courts to
“Cases” and “Controversies” only. Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 559,
112 S. Ct. 2130, 2136 (1992) (citation omitted). Among other requirements, the
case-or-controversy restriction demands that litigants before the court have
standing to pursue the claims they press. See id. at 559-60, 112 S. Ct. at 2136. At
an “irreducible constitutional minimum,” standing requires a showing of injury in
fact, causation, and redressability. See CAMP Legal Def. Fund, Inc. v. City of
Atlanta, 451 F.3d 1257, 1269 (11th Cir. 2006) (citation and quotation marks
omitted). Here, Defendants can show no injury inflicted by the delay between June
7, when, at the latest, they abandoned their cell phone, and June 27, when law
enforcement obtained a search warrant for the abandoned phone.
Law enforcement must not unreasonably delay in obtaining a search warrant
after seizing an item to be searched. See United States v. Mitchell, 565 F.3d 1347,
1352 (11th Cir. 2009). We demand expediency in obtaining a search warrant to
search seized evidence in order to avoid interfering with a continuing possessory
interest for longer than reasonably necessary, in case the search reveals no
evidence (or permissibly segregable evidence) of a crime and the item has no
independent evidentiary value and is not otherwise forfeitable. See id. Under
those circumstances, the searched item must be returned promptly so the person
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with the possessory interest can continue to enjoy that interest. Id. As we have
explained, “In the ordinary case, the sooner the warrant issues, the sooner the
property owner’s possessory rights can be restored if the search reveals nothing
incriminating.”13 Id.
But if the person from whom the item was seized lacks a cognizable
possessory interest in the item, that person’s Fourth Amendment rights are not
violated by even a lengthy period between seizure and the procurement of a
warrant. That is so because any delay—no matter the length—cannot interfere
with possessory rights that do not exist.

And, as Chief Justice Burger has

explained, “[a] seizure affects only the person’s possessory interests.” Segura v.
United States, 468 U.S. 796, 806, 104 S. Ct. 3380, 3386 (1984) (Burger, J., nonmajority section of majority opinion).
The import of this observation is that a person without a possessory interest
in a seized item lacks standing to object to the length of the period between the
seizure and the search because the length of the seizure cannot inflict injury on that
person.14

And a person must have standing, of course, for a court to have

13

Diligently seeking a warrant also allows the judiciary to promptly evaluate and correct
seizures that were improper from the outset. United States v. Burgard, 675 F.3d 1029, 1033 (7th
Cir. 2012). Here, however, the lawfulness of the initial seizure is beyond dispute.
14
We have described the considerations involved in evaluating standing to object to a
search—as opposed to standing to object solely to the length of a seizure—slightly differently.
See United States v. Hastamorir, 881 F.2d 1551, 1559-60 (11th Cir. 1989). In Hastamorir, we
explained that to have standing to challenge a search, a person must “maintain[] a legitimate
expectation of privacy in the object of the search.” Id. at 1559. The answer to that inquiry, in
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jurisdiction over the delay issue. See Kelly v. Harris, 331 F.3d 817, 819 (11th Cir.
2003) (explaining that the standing requirement must be fulfilled in order for a
federal court to have jurisdiction). Indeed, federal courts are “obligated to inquire
into subject matter jurisdiction sua sponte whenever it may be lacking,” and the
issue may not be waived or forfeited. Bochese v. Town v. Town of Ponce Inlet, 405
F.3d 964, 975 (11th Cir. 2005) (citation and quotation marks omitted); see also
FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 230-31, 110 S. Ct. 596, 607 (1990)
(citation omitted) (“Although neither side raises the issue [of standing] here, we are
required to address the issue even if the courts below have not passed on it, . . . and
even if the parties fail to raise the issue before us. The federal courts are under an
independent obligation to examine their own jurisdiction, and standing ‘is perhaps
the most important of [the jurisdictional] doctrines.’”).
Here, Defendants lack standing to contest the period of delay between June 7
and the obtaining of the search warrant on June 27 because they abandoned any
possessory interests they once had in the seized cell phone by, at the latest, June 7.
For this reason, we do not have jurisdiction over Defendants’ claim that this delay
violated their Fourth Amendment rights.

turn, requires two sub-inquiries: (1) whether the person “has manifested ‘a subjective
expectation of privacy in the object of the challenged search[,]’” and (2) whether society is
willing to recognize the person’s expectation of privacy as legitimate. Id. (citation omitted). The
issue of abandonment arises under the first inquiry. Id. Where abandonment occurs, we do not
reach the second inquiry. Id.
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2.
Fourth Amendment claims do not lie when the defendant has abandoned the
searched property. 15 See United States v. Ramos, 12 F.3d 1019, 1024 (11th Cir.

15

To the extent that the Dissent suggests that abandonment was never at issue in this
case, see Dissent at 52 n.1 and 54 n.2, we respectfully disagree. First, the Government did, in
fact, raise abandonment in the district court in response to Defendants’ motions to suppress. See
Government’s Response to Defendant’s Motion to Suppress, ECF No. 44, at 8 (emphasis added)
(“The cellular phone had been previously lost, left behind, or abandoned by the defendant at a
shopping center. . . . The police did not deprive the owner, the defendant, of his possessory
interest in his phone. Since the defendant lost or abandoned his phone, and he did not report its
loss to the police as to alert the police to his identity, any delay in obtaining a search warrant did
not constitute a significant interference with the defendant’s possessory interest.”) (emphasis
added); see also Transcript of Suppression Hearing, ECF No. 62 at 240 (government arguing,
“The cell phone had been previously lost or left behind at a store, and subsequently it was
abandoned”) (emphasis added); id. at 249 (defense counsel responding, “Now, their argument as
far as—they’re wrong about it, but their argument as far as the potential that it might have
been abandoned is relevant, although incorrect . . . .”) (emphasis added) & 254 (defense counsel
arguing, “[O]n this abandoned issue that keeps—that’s been quoted around all day . . . .)
(emphasis added); id. at 253 (court asking defense counsel, “[A]ren’t you establishing a pretty
high burden on them to—on a piece of abandoned property?”) (emphasis added). Second,
abandonment results in a lack of standing because a person has no possessory interest in—and
therefore no injury resulting from the seizure of—an item that she has abandoned. Defendants’
possessory interest in the recovered cell phone has always been at the center of Defendants’
claim that the 23-day delay violated their Fourth Amendment rights, see, e.g., Opinion and
Order, ECF No. 97 (“Defendants’ possessory interest in the cell phone was, as the Report and
Recommendation found, ‘greatly diminished.’”); Testimony of Classie Coleman, ECF No. 62 at
57-58 (“Q: “And no one contacted the Police Department, that you’re aware of, looking for the
phone?” A: “Not to my knowledge.” Q: “Or reporting it lost or stolen?” A: “Not to my
knowledge, no.”). And, to show their continuing possessory interest in the phone, defendants
have not been shy about describing efforts they undertook to recover the phone after they lost it.
See, e.g., Sparks’s Opening Br. at 8 (noting that Sparks returned to Walmart to find her phone
after she realized that it had been lost; Walmart reported not having yet found the phone; Sparks
sent text messages to the phone “urgently request[ing]” its return; Sparks asked Vo not to give
the phone to Walmart’s customer service but instead to return it personally to Sparks); id. at 39
(arguing, “Although the cellphone was initially lost, the defendant promptly communicated with
the finder of the telephone to arrange for its immediate return.”). Third, even if the issue of
abandonment were wholly unrelated to the issue of possessory interest and the issue of
abandonment had never been mentioned in this case previously, we would still have an
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1994); United States v. O’Bryant, 775 F.2d 1528, 1534 (11th Cir. 1985). As our
predecessor Court has explained, “[I]t is settled law that one has no standing to
complain of a search or seizure of property he has voluntarily abandoned.” United
States v. Colbert, 474 F.2d 174, 176 (5th Cir. 1973) (en banc). 16
We assess objectively whether abandonment has occurred, based primarily
on the prior possessor’s intent, as discerned from statements, acts, and other facts.
Id.

As we have said, “All relevant circumstances existing at the time of the

alleged abandonment should be considered. Police pursuit or the existence of a
police investigation does not of itself render abandonment involuntary.”

Id.

(citation omitted). In making this inquiry, we have emphasized that the issue of
abandonment for Fourth Amendment standing purposes is not abandonment in the
“strict property-right sense.” United States v. Edwards, 441 F.2d 749, 753 (5th
Cir. 1971).

Rather, we use a “common sen[s]e approach” in evaluating

abandonment. Id. The critical inquiry when determining whether an abandonment
has occurred is “whether the person prejudiced . . . voluntarily discarded, left
behind, or otherwise relinquished his interest in the property in question.” Ramos,
12 F.3d at 1022 (emphasis and citation omitted).

obligation to consider whether the record showed abandonment because where abandonment
occurs, we lack jurisdiction.
16
Pursuant to Bonner v. City of Prichard, Ala., 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en
banc), opinions of the Fifth Circuit issued prior to October 1, 1981, are binding precedent in the
Eleventh Circuit.
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Applying this doctrine, we have determined, for example, that an individual
who ditches property during a chase with law enforcement abandons that property
and lacks standing to challenge the seizure of it. See, e.g., United States v. Tinoco,
304 F.3d 1088, 1117 (11th Cir. 2002); United States v. Edwards, 441 F.2d 749,
751 (5th Cir. 1971). We have similarly concluded that a person who makes a
decision to leave his property containing contraband when law enforcement
approaches or seeks to examine the property likewise abandons the property and
loses standing to challenge its seizure. See, e.g., United States v. McKennon, 814
F.2d 1539, 1545-46 (11th Cir. 1987).
Indeed, we have found abandonment and consequently no standing even
when a defendant chose to leave his property only because his life would have
been endangered had he not done so. In United States v. Edwards, 644 F.2d 1 (5th
Cir. Unit B 1981), the defendant was onboard a vessel called the Lady Barbara. A
distress call was made from the vessel, stating that the boat was taking on water
and sinking. Id. at 1. In response, both the Coast Guard and the Florida Marine
Patrol dispatched rescue vessels. Id. at 1-2. The Coast Guard reached the Lady
Barbara first, and its occupants, including the defendant, left the Lady Barbara
and were taken by the Coast Guard to shore. Id. at 1. In the meantime, the Marine
Patrol reached the empty ship and boarded it to find out whether anyone was
onboard and to ascertain whether the ship carried contraband. Id. at 2. The Marine
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Patrol discovered numerous bales of marijuana, which the Coast Guard later
seized. Id. We held that the defendant lacked standing to challenge the seizure
because he “called for aid, accepted aid from the Coast Guard, and voluntarily
abandoned” the ship. Id.
Johnson and Sparks made their decision to abandon their cell phone under
far less onerous circumstances. Law enforcement was not chasing them, nor were
their lives at risk when they decided to abandon their cell phone. Instead, knowing
who had their cell phone and where she could be found through minimal effort,
Johnson and Sparks made a voluntary and calculated decision over a period of
three days to cease all efforts to reclaim their phone.
First, we affirm that Johnson and Sparks initially maintained a possessory
interest in the cell phone when it was lost. After Sparks noticed that she had left
the phone at Walmart, she returned to the store to retrieve it but was unable to
locate it. Sparks then contacted Vo and made arrangements to pick up the phone
from Vo at Vo’s workplace in Walmart. So far, so good.
But while Johnson and Sparks were initially eager to retrieve the cell phone,
notably, Sparks instructed Vo not to leave the phone with customer service for
Sparks to retrieve, suggesting that she did not want the phone back at all expenses.
And when Vo failed to appear at the Walmart with the phone, as Sparks and Vo
had arranged, Johnson and Sparks did a strange thing: though they knew precisely
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who had the phone and where to find her, they made no attempts to locate Vo at
the Walmart where they knew she worked. They similarly did not ask anyone at
Walmart for assistance in obtaining the phone’s return from Vo. Nor did they
complain to Walmart that a Walmart employee had found their phone at Walmart
and refused to return it. They also chose not to file a report with the police
complaining about Vo’s failure to give them back their phone, though they knew
where Vo could be found. In fact, no evidence exists that Johnson or Sparks ever
even sent another text message to the phone after June 4, 2012, in an attempt to
retrieve it. See Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate Judge (ECF No. 64)
at 33 (“Other than a text or texts reported by Vo and Widner, there was no other
evidence that Johnson or Sparks made concerted attempts to obtain the cell phone
such as contacting law enforcement to report that it was lost.”).
This decision to stop pursuing the phone, in the face of reasonable
alternatives available to obtain the return of the phone, when Johnson and Sparks
knew where it was and how to get it back, stands in stark contrast to their urgent
efforts to retrieve the phone in the period immediately after the phone was lost.
Instead, this decision is consistent with the earlier instruction that Vo not leave the
phone with customer service (which might prove too risky from a criminal-liability
standpoint) and betrays the intent to abandon the phone. In other words, Johnson
and Sparks made a conscious choice to allow a complete stranger (Vo) to keep
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their phone and everything on it—without so much as a password to protect the
phone’s contents—rather than make reasonable further efforts to obtain its return,
even though they knew who had the phone and where she was. Whether they did
so to try to avoid provoking Vo into taking the phone to law enforcement or simply
because they decided that retrieval of the phone was not worth their effort,
Johnson’s and Sparks’s intent to allow Vo to keep the phone is clear on this record.
Besides Johnson’s and Sparks’s complete abandonment of their efforts to
obtain the phone after Vo did not appear at the designated time and place, Johnson
and Sparks engaged in affirmative acts further demonstrating their intent to
abandon the phone. Within a few days of losing the phone in question, Johnson
purchased an upgraded phone for himself, filed an insurance claim for the lost
phone, and obtained and provided a replacement phone to Sparks.

The

replacement phone that Johnson gave Sparks was the same model as the seized
phone.
Under the facts in this case, Johnson’s and Sparks’s replacement of the
phone further signified the finality of their earlier calculated decision to abandon
the seized phone and cease seeking its return from the known finder. Indeed, even
had Vo decided to keep the phone for herself, the only reasonable conclusion from
this record is that Johnson and Sparks had no intention to do anything further to
recover it. And if a person’s decision to leave a sinking ship to save his own life
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can be viewed as abandonment, see Edwards, 644 F.2d 1, we cannot see how a
considered and voluntary choice over a three-day period to allow a total stranger to
keep a phone containing personal information does not constitute abandonment,
when Johnson and Sparks easily could have instead chosen to retrieve the phone
with minimal, or at most, reasonable effort.
To be clear, we do not suggest a Fourth Amendment jurisprudence of
“finders keepers; losers weepers.” Loss is not the same thing as abandonment.
And loss alone cannot support a finding of abandonment. Nor does the filing of a
claim for a lost item and the replacement of that item with the resulting insurance
money, in and of itself, demonstrate an intent to abandon. Instead, we must view
all of the facts and consider the totality of the circumstances to determine whether
an intent to abandon may objectively be discerned.
Where, as here, the purchase of a replacement phone follows the ceasing of
efforts to recover the original phone despite knowledge of how to obtain the return
of the original phone through reasonable efforts, those actions provide further
confirmation of a deliberate decision to abandon the original phone. Nor, under
these circumstances, can Johnson and Sparks’s initial efforts at recovering the
phone insulate them forever from a finding of abandonment when their later
actions leave no other reasonable conclusion to be drawn.

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In this regard, we respectfully disagree with the Dissent that Johnson and
Sparks’s efforts to recover the phone in this case were analogous to the efforts of
the defendant in Ramos, who we held not to have abandoned the searched property.
See Dissent at 57. In Ramos, the defendant had leased a room, but his lease
expired at 10 a.m., and another client was scheduled to move in at 2 p.m. that same
day. Ramos, 12 F.3d at 1021. A cleaning-services company was hired to clean the
unit to prepare it for the next tenant. Id. While cleaning the apartment, the
housekeepers noticed that the defendant had still not moved out. Id. They packed
the defendant’s personal effects into garbage bags.

Id.

In the process, the

housekeepers found two dollar bills, each of which had a white powdery substance
on it. Id. They also found a locked briefcase. Id. Peering through the side of the
briefcase that did not contain the lock, the housekeepers could see pieces of
napkins wrapped by rubberbands.

Id.

The cleaning company notified law

enforcement. Id. When the police arrived, they opened the briefcase and fieldtested a powdery substance located in one of the bags within the briefcase. Id. at
1021-22. It tested positive for cocaine. Id. The police then relocked the briefcase
and obtained a search warrant for the purpose of expanding the search of the
defendant’s unit.
We held that the defendant had not abandoned his interest in the rental unit
and the briefcase. In reaching this conclusion, we relied on the following facts: the
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defendant had retained the key to the unit, id. at 1024; prior practice dictated that
the holdover lessee’s personal effects would be packed and held until the holdover
lessee could be located, id. at 1025; and, significantly, the defendant had made a
telephone call to the management’s office, presumably to arrange to retrieve his
property, the day after he had been scheduled to vacate the unit, id. at 1022, 1026.
Ramos is readily distinguishable from Johnson and Sparks’s case. First,
Ramos kept a key to the unit where his property was stored. Second, the search in
Ramos’s case occurred on the same day and within hours of when Ramos
supposedly abandoned the searched property. And crucially, Ramos called the
management company in an effort to recover his property within 24 hours of when
he allegedly abandoned it.

By that time, of course, the search had already

occurred.
In contrast, here, after the initial failed effort to obtain the phone from Vo,
which occurred in the first three days after the phone was lost, Johnson and Sparks
made an affirmative decision to allow Vo to keep the phone, though they knew she
had it and where to find her. Then they replaced the phone and went on with their
lives, without another action evidencing even another thought about the lost phone.
Indeed, at least twenty days passed between Defendants’ cessation of efforts to
recover the phone and law enforcement’s search of the phone. During that time,
Defendants engaged in not a single effort of any type to recover their phone from
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Vo, despite the fact that they knew she had it and where she worked. For these
reasons, Ramos is not helpful to Defendants.
We also must say a few words about the Dissent’s suggestion that our
decision here today puts us in conflict with other Circuits. See Dissent at 58 n.4
(“Other Circuits have found in cases like this one, where there was no verbal denial
of an interest in the property or clear physical relinquishment of it (such as by
throwing the property away, unconditionally giving it to another person, or
dropping it and running away from it), that a person had not abandoned the
property.”). We respectfully disagree.
None of the cases cited in footnote 4 of the Dissent involved facts similar to
those at issue in our case. In United States v. Infante-Ruiz, 13 F.3d 498 (1st Cir.
1994), for example, the court held that the defendant’s decision to store items
“inside a closed briefcase inside a [friend’s] locked car trunk” did not reveal a
“willingness . . . to ‘expose’ such items to the public,” and “nothing . . . indicated
that [the defendant] had abandoned the briefcase, relinquished authority over it, or
left it open to ‘public inspection and consumption.’” Id. at 501-02. Unlike in
Infante-Ruiz, in our case, Johnson and Sparks did not leave their subsequently
searched item with a trusted friend; they left it with a total stranger, despite the fact
that it was not password-protected and despite knowing how to retrieve the phone.

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United States v. Scrivner, 680 F.2d 1099 (5th Cir. 1982), is no more
relevant. There, the court concluded that the record could not support a finding of
abandonment where the officer searched two loaded trucks leased by the
defendant, which were found on or in warehouse premises also leased by the
defendant, merely because the trucks were unlocked and the ignition keys were
inside. Id. at 1100. Johnson and Sparks’s case is not similar to the situation in
Scrivner; law enforcement did not recover the searched cell phone from
Defendants’ property.
Next, the Dissent cites United States v. Basinksi, 226 F.3d 829 (7th Cir.
2000). In Basinski, the defendant entrusted a locked briefcase to a “life long
friend” so that the friend could hide it on the friend’s private property, in a locked
barn, surrounded by a locked gate, in a remote part of Wisconsin, which the friend
visited only infrequently. When the defendant learned that the FBI had tapped his
phone, he instructed the friend to burn and destroy the briefcase. The friend agreed
and told the defendant that he had burned the briefcase. In fact, however, the
friend did not burn the briefcase but instead turned it over to the FBI, who searched
the briefcase without a warrant.

The court held that the defendant had not

abandoned his property interests in the briefcase. As the court explained, “By
ordering [the friend] to destroy the briefcase, [the defendant] did not invite all the
world to rummage through the briefcase at will . . . . Rather, his command
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manifested a desire that nobody possess or examine the contents of the briefcase.
And even after he gave this order, he continued to manifest a desire to exclude
others from seeing its contents.” Id. at 838. Johnson and Sparks did just the
opposite of the Basinski defendant; instead of protecting their phone, they allowed
a total stranger to keep it, even though the phone was not password-protected and
even though they knew how to obtain the phone back from Vo with reasonable
effort.
In United States v. Lopez-Cruz, 730 F.3d 803 (9th Cir. 2013), law
enforcement asked the defendant about phones in the car he was driving. Id. at
805. The defendant said that the phones were a friend’s. Id. at 805-06. The court
concluded that the defendant could not be found to have abandoned his reasonable
expectation of privacy in the phones because the phones were in the defendant’s
possession and were being used by him at the time that law enforcement
encountered him. Id. at 808-09. As the court further explained, “[T]he fact that
the agent sought [the defendant’s] permission before searching the phones suggests
that the agent did not believe that [the defendant] had abandoned his privacy
interest in the phones, and contradicts the government’s position that his actions
exhibited a clear abandonment of them.” Id. at 809. Unlike the Lopez-Cruz
defendant, Johnson and Sparks were not in possession of and were not using the

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seized phone when it was seized or when it was searched—and they had not been
in possession of it and they had not used it for at least 23 days.
United States v. Garzon, 119 F.3d 1446 (10th Cir. 1997), is likewise
inapposite. In Garzon, the defendant was on a bus to Chicago that had a brief
layover in Denver. Id. at 1450. The bus driver advised the patrons that they could
leave their belongings on the bus during the layover. Id. at 1448. When the bus
arrived in Denver, however, law enforcement instructed the bus riders to remove
all of their property from the bus and to carry it past a narcotics-trained dog. Id.
The defendant removed one backpack but left two other bags on the bus. Id. In
concluding that the defendant had not abandoned the two bags, the court noted that
the defendant was scheduled to reboard the bus that held the bags in question, and
the only act that the district court relied on to find abandonment was the
defendant’s failure to obey what the circuit court concluded was law enforcement’s
unlawful order to remove items from the bus and “parade them past a drug-sniffing
dog.” Id. at 1450. Johnson and Sparks’s case does not involve any unlawful
orders—or any orders of any type, for that matter—by law enforcement that
precipitated the acts of abandonment.

Instead, Johnson and Sparks decided

completely on their own to cease their pursuit of their phone and to obtain a
replacement.

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Finally, in United States v. Most, 876 F.2d 191 (D. C. Cir. 1989), the
defendant asked a store clerk to hold his bag for him while he was leaving the
store.

Id. at 192.

The court held that this simple act did not constitute

abandonment, noting that the store clerk testified that the defendant asked three or
four times before he left for the store clerk to hold onto the bag for him. Id. at 197.
As the court explained, the defendant “entrusted his belongings to the professional
supervision of the cashiers with the clear understanding that they would protect the
property from intrusion by the public.” Id.
But unlike the defendant in Most, Johnson and Sparks did not entrust their
phone to Vo. Rather, Vo found it. Though Vo originally agreed to return the
phone, when she failed to do so at the appointed time and place, she never agreed
to safeguard Defendants’ phone for them. And unlike in Most, where the search
occurred within a short period of the defendant’s entrusting of the package to the
store clerk, the search of Defendants’ phone did not occur for 23 days after Vo
failed to meet Johnson and Sparks. That’s a long time to leave an unprotected cell
phone with a complete stranger when reasonable efforts were available to recover
the phone. In short, we do not agree that our decision today conflicts with other
Circuits’ case law.
We emphasize that Defendants had alternatives available to them to recover
the phone with reasonable effort, but they instead made a deliberate decision not to
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do so. On this record, we are left with a definite and firm conviction that the
district court erred in finding that Sparks and Johnson maintained even a minimal
possessory interest in the seized phone after they abandoned their efforts to recover
the phone from Vo and obtained a replacement phone.17

For this reason,

Defendants lack standing to challenge the delay between June 7, when, at the
latest, they made an affirmative decision to stop pursuing the phone, despite
knowing how to obtain it with relatively little effort, and June 27, when law
enforcement obtained the search warrant for the phone.
3.
During the three-day period from June 4, when the FMPD seized the phone,
and June 7, when, at the latest, Johnson and Sparks abandoned any possessory
interest they may have had in the seized phone, the phone spent one day in
transport to the Cape Coral Police Department, and Officer Enterline—the only
Task Force member with access to the Cape Coral Police Department evidence
room—was then assigned as the case agent as she was boarding a flight out of

17

We do not address the situation where information is simultaneously stored on a cell
phone or other computer and the Cloud. The record contains no evidence that any of the
searched information was stored on the Cloud. To the contrary, all of the images and videos in
this case were stored on local media—specifically, on the cell phone at issue and on another cell
phone recovered in Johnson’s home, as well as on four USB drives and a Micro SD card. See,
e.g., Testimony of Sparks, ECF No. 62 at 224 (emphasis added) (agreeing that she “expect[ed]
that the photographs and the information that [she] placed on the hard drive of [the recovered]
phone . . . would be entitled to privacy . . . .”).
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town. Under these circumstances, the three-day delay was not unreasonable and
did not violate Johnson’s and Sparks’s Fourth Amendment rights.
4.
Johnson and Sparks also argue that the FMPD should have informed them
that it had possession of their phone so that they could have asserted their
possessory interests in it. But Widner, Vo, and the FMPD had no information
beyond the first names of the owners.
Widner entered the police station with the phone and immediately told
Coleman, the first government agent that he encountered, that he believed the
phone contained inappropriate images of children.

At that point, had law

enforcement searched the phone more broadly than Widner, law enforcement
would have risked violating the Fourth Amendment. See O’Bryant, 775 F.2d at
1534 (explaining that under South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 96 S. Ct.
3092 (1976), police are lawfully allowed to search property within their custody so
long as that search is consistent with the police caretaking function and is not
merely a pretext for concealing an investigatory police motive). 18 Moreover, the
record clearly demonstrates that, as a matter of policy, the FMPD does not search

18

Widner did not exchange any texts or speak on the phone with the purported owners of
the phone. Although it appears Vo might have, the district court found that the extent to which
Vo had viewed the phone’s contents was unclear. Consequently, the police could not search any
part of the phone that Widner had not shown them without risking running afoul of Opperman.
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technological devices it receives for indicia of ownership.19 Quite simply, nothing
required (and nothing may have allowed) the FMPD to look for information related
to the ownership of the cell phone so that the owners could assert their possessory
interests in it.

And even if the FMPD were required to have searched for

ownership information, (which, to be clear, it was not), the FMPD’s failure to do
so does not shed light on Johnson’s or Sparks’s intent to subsequently relinquish
their interests in the phone voluntarily.
In making the determination that the district court’s denial of Johnson’s and
Sparks’s motions to suppress should be affirmed, we remain mindful that
“the exclusionary rule . . . is a prudential doctrine created
by th[e Supreme] Court to compel respect for the
constitutional guaranty” of the Fourth Amendment.
Davis v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S. Ct. 2419,
2426, 180 L.Ed.2d 285 (2011) (citations and internal
quotation marks omitted). Its “sole purpose . . . is to
deter future Fourth Amendment violations,” and it “is not
a personal constitutional right” or “designed to redress
the injury” already suffered. Id. (internal quotation
marks omitted). In short, “[w]here suppression fails to
yield appreciable deterrence, exclusion is clearly
unwarranted.” Id. at 2426-27 (internal quotation marks
omitted).
Laist, 702 F.3d at 615 (alterations in original).
Our decision here does nothing to undermine the diligence requirement’s
incentive for law enforcement to act quickly to secure a warrant. Johnson’s and
19

The FMPD does look through items such as purses and wallets, which usually contain
government-issued identification, in an effort to return the property to its likely owner.
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Sparks’s actions and inactions demonstrating that they voluntarily relinquished
their possessory interests in the phone were completely beyond the FMPD’s or
Agent Enterline’s ability to control. For instance, had Johnson or Sparks ever
returned to the Walmart to try to recover the phone when Vo did not return it at the
appointed time and place, evidence would exist demonstrating that Johnson and
Sparks had not abandoned their possessory interests. The delay in obtaining the
search warrant that allegedly intruded on those interests could then be balanced
“against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the
intrusion.” Place, 462 U.S. at 703, 103 S. Ct. at 2642. Even after today’s decision,
then, “officers who [delay in obtaining a warrant] will recognize that whatever
evidence they discover as a . . . result of the [delay] may be suppressed.” Segura,
468 U.S. at 812, 104 S. Ct. at 3389.
Additionally, we cannot overlook the fact that the cell phone was lost, it was
recovered by private citizens, and neither the FMPD nor Agent Enterline were
aware of the phone’s rightful owners before the search warrant was executed.
Again, the purpose of the diligence requirement is to ensure that property thought
to contain contraband can be returned promptly to its owners to limit the intrusion
on their possessory interests, should contraband not be found. See Mitchell, 565 at
F.3d at 1352. But here—where Johnson and Sparks took no action to retrieve their
phone despite knowing who had found it and where she worked—acting diligently
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would not have effectuated the diligence requirement’s purpose. On the other
hand, when law enforcement is aware of or should be aware of who the owners of
seized property are, they must act diligently so the purpose underlying the rule will
be effectuated. Under the circumstances of this case, excluding the evidence would
not even “minimally advance Fourth Amendment interests.” Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at
125, 104 S. Ct. at 1663.
For these reasons, we hold that because Johnson and Sparks abandoned their
possessory interests in the cell phone, they lack standing to assert that any delay
beyond June 7 in obtaining a warrant intruded upon their constitutional rights.20
See Colbert, 474 F.2d at 176 (collecting cases to support the proposition that “one
has no standing to complain of a search or seizure of property he has voluntarily
abandoned”). As a result, the district court did not commit reversible error in
denying the motions to suppress.
IV.
Johnson also appeals the imposition of his 600-month prison sentence,
arguing that it violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
20

Our standing analysis on this issue does not affect the determination that Johnson and
Sparks have standing to assert that evidence should be suppressed because (1) the FMPD’s
search exceeded the scope of the private search. At the time the challenged FMPD and private
searches occurred, Johnson and Sparks had not yet abandoned the cell phone, so they still
maintained a reasonable expectation of privacy in it. Even if we employed the traditional
balancing test to analyze whether the delay between seizure of the phone and procurement of the
warrant was reasonable, the result would be the same. With no possessory interest to weigh on
Johnson’s and Sparks’s side of the scale, any delay before obtaining a search warrant was
inherently reasonable.
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Section 2251(e) of Title 18 ordinarily provides for a statutory minimum
sentence of fifteen years’ imprisonment and a maximum of thirty years for a
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251. If the person being sentenced was previously
convicted under the chapter, however, § 2251(e) provides for a minimum sentence
of twenty-five years’ imprisonment and a maximum of fifty years.

Johnson

received the enhanced penalty of fifty years, based upon a 2003 conviction for
possession and transporting of child pornography.
He argues that the imposition of this enhancement violated his Fifth
Amendment right to due process because the specific conviction relied upon for
the enhancement was not alleged in the indictment, so, he asserts, he was not
afforded proper notice of the elements of the offense necessary to sustain such a
sentence. Additionally, Johnson challenges the enhancement on Sixth Amendment
grounds, arguing that because he did not admit to the prior conviction in the plea
agreement, the fact of the prior conviction relied upon to increase both the
statutory minimum and maximum was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
In making these arguments, Johnson principally relies on Apprendi v. New
Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S. Ct. 2348 (2000).

In Apprendi, the Supreme Court

held that facts that expose a defendant to an increase of the statutory maximum
penalty constitute elements of the crime and cannot merely be found by a
preponderance of the evidence by the judge. Id. at 490, 120 S. Ct. at 2362-63.
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Instead, any such fact must be submitted to the jury and proven beyond a
reasonable doubt.

See id.

Significantly, though, the Court excluded prior

convictions that might increase statutory maximums from having to be submitted
to a jury and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Id.
Johnson concedes that Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224,
118 S. Ct. 1219 (1998), forecloses his argument. In that case, the Court held that a
prior conviction need not be alleged in the indictment to trigger an enhanced
statutory maximum. Id. at 229, 118 S. Ct. at 1223. Although the Supreme Court
hinted in dicta in Apprendi that Almendarez-Torres might have been incorrectly
decided, Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 489, 120 S. Ct. at 2362, we have repeatedly noted
that we are bound by Almendarez-Torres until the Supreme Court explicitly
overrules it. E.g., United States v. Beckles, 565 F. 3d 832, 846 (11th Cir. 2009).
Nevertheless, Johnson attempts to distinguish his case from AlmendarezTorres. He argues that in Almendarez-Torres the defendant admitted the existence
of the prior convictions during his plea colloquy, so the Court had to address only
the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights to indictment, due process, and notice and
had no reason to discuss his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. Here, however,
Johnson contends that he never admitted to the fact of his 2003 conviction or that it
was a qualifying predicate at his plea colloquy and that the government, therefore,
was required to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
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Although the plea agreement did not specifically mention the 2003
conviction, it did explicitly state that Johnson was pleading guilty to 18 U.S.C. §
2251(e) and that the minimum was twenty-five years and the maximum was fifty
years’ imprisonment. By the plain language of the statute, this minimum and
maximum is applicable only to the extent that a defendant has a prior conviction
under the same chapter. And significantly, Johnson does not contest the factual
accuracy of the conviction; that is, he has not contended that he was not in fact
previously convicted under the chapter. This proves fatal to his appeal. See
Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 488, 120 S. Ct. at 2362 (noting that the procedural
safeguards related to the “fact” of conviction, and the failure to challenge the “fact”
of conviction mitigate any Sixth Amendment concerns that might otherwise be
implicated by allowing a judge to determine a “fact” that increases the punishment
beyond the statutory maximum). Accordingly, the district court did not err by
applying the statutory enhancement when sentencing Johnson.
V.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgments and sentences of the district court
are AFFIRMED.

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MARTIN, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
I agree with the careful ruling of the Majority that the search of Alan
Johnson and Jennifer Sparks’s cell phone by Detective-Sergeant O’Reilly exceeded
the scope of the private search done by Linda Vo and David Widner. I write
separately, however, because I do not believe that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks
abandoned their cell phone. And if the phone was not abandoned, then the twentythree-day delay in getting a search warrant for the phone was long enough to
render its seizure unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Based on this, I
would suppress law enforcement’s search of the phone to the extent it went beyond
the private search. Also, the officers searched the Johnson/Sparks home based on
what they found during what I view as their unreasonable seizure of the phone, so I
would suppress that search as well.
Both Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks pleaded guilty, but conditioned those
pleas on their ability to raise the Fourth Amendment claims the panel addresses
here. While my ruling would not suppress all of the evidence used to convict
them, I believe it would mean they are prevailing parties, as that term is used in
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11. Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks would
therefore have the right, under Rule 11, to withdraw their guilty pleas. That being
the case, I respectfully dissent to the judgment entered by the Majority.
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I.
I do not read our precedent to support the Majority’s conclusion that Mr.
Johnson and Ms. Sparks abandoned their possessory interest in their cell phone
after three days of looking for it.1 This is not the typical case of abandonment, in
which a person’s “only conceivable purpose . . . was to rid himself of the [item]
with its incriminating contents.” United States v. Williams, 569 F.2d 823, 826 (5th
Cir. 1978). To my knowledge, this court has not previously deemed property
“abandoned” for Fourth Amendment purposes when it was accidentally lost and
reasonable efforts were made to find it.
Further, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks’s actions do not suggest that they
“abandoned” their phone. It does not seem correct for the Majority to say that Mr.
Johnson and Ms. Sparks “took no action to retrieve their phone.” Upon realizing
that they had accidentally left their cell phone at Walmart, Ms. Sparks immediately

1

Our precedent requires the government to bear the burden of proving abandonment.
United States v. Cofield, 272 F.3d 1303, 1306 (11th Cir. 2001) (per curiam). Though the
government mentioned the issue of abandonment in the early stages of this case in the District
Court, it never asked for or got a ruling from the trial court about whether Mr. Johnson and Ms.
Sparks had abandoned their cell phone. The government in essence abandoned its abandonment
argument. The District Court made no findings related to abandonment in denying the
defendants’ motions to suppress. It did not mention the word. The government, in turn, did not
argue abandonment on appeal. Indeed, the word “abandon” never appears in the brief the
government filed here. Because the government failed to meet its burden of proof on the
abandonment issue, and we have no factual findings about abandonment from the District Court,
we should not now rely on our own findings on that subject to rule in favor of the government on
appeal.
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returned to the store in an attempt to find and claim it. The store had not located
the cell phone yet, so this first effort proved unsuccessful.
Ms. Sparks then sent a text message identifying herself and Mr. Johnson as
the owners of the phone to anyone who might have found it, and urgently
requested its return. Linda Vo, a Walmart employee, had found the phone and
responded to Ms. Sparks’s text message. Ms. Sparks then spoke with Ms. Vo on
the phone. The two arranged for Ms. Vo to keep the phone until Ms. Sparks could
pick it up from Ms. Vo’s workplace.
But Ms. Sparks’s second trip to get the phone also proved unsuccessful. Ms.
Vo gave the phone to Mr. Widner, who in turn gave it to the Fort Myers Police
Department, who then gave it to the Cape Coral Police Department. Still, Mr.
Johnson and Ms. Sparks remained undeterred in their efforts to retrieve their cell
phone. Even while Mr. Widner was turning the phone over to the police, Mr.
Johnson and Ms. Sparks continued to call and send text messages to the phone in
an attempt to reclaim it. These text messages “would automatically pop up” even
as the police were examining the phone, stating that “we need the phone back” and
even “giving information as to where they could meet to get the phone back.”
At the Fort Myers police station, Detective-Sergeant O’Reilly then turned
the phone off and submitted it to evidence, blocking further efforts by Mr. Johnson
and Ms. Sparks to successfully communicate with their cell phone. He then drove
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the phone over to the Cape Coral Police Department. The entire time, Mr. Johnson
and Ms. Sparks were under the impression that they were going to get the phone
back from Ms. Vo at Walmart and had no knowledge the phone was located at a
police station.
The Majority seems to suggest that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks should have
done even more to retrieve their phone in order to avoid a finding of abandonment.
For example, the Majority characterizes Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks as having
“voluntarily relinquished” their possessory interest in the phone. This seems to be
based on the Majority’s belief that they “took no action to retrieve their phone”
from Ms. Vo after their initial attempts in the first three days, “despite knowing
who had found it and where she worked.”2
But in considering this question, it is important to note that Ms. Vo never
testified in this case. We can only surmise based on Mr. Widner’s testimony what
Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks possibly did to get their phone after it was turned over
2

In order to arrive at its finding that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks abandoned their phone, the
Majority makes findings, for the first time on appeal, about what Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks
knew and what motivated them to take the actions they may or may not have taken. For
example, the Majority says that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks “chose not to file a report with the
police complaining about Vo’s failure to give them back their phone, though they knew where
Vo could be found,” that they “did not ask anyone at Walmart for assistance in obtaining the
phone’s return from Vo,” and that “no evidence exists that [Mr.] Johnson or [Ms.] Sparks ever
even sent another text message to the phone after June 4, 2012, in an attempt to retrieve it.” The
District Court made no factual findings one way or the other about these issues. It is the job of
Courts of Appeals to review findings of fact for clear error. See United States v. Ramos, 12 F.3d
1019, 1022 (11th Cir. 1994); Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a)(6). We do not properly engage in fact finding
in the first instance. See S.S. Silberblatt, Inc. v. U.S. for Use & Benefit of Lambert Corp., 353
F.2d 545, 550 (5th Cir. 1965) (“It is not the province of this court to determine the essential facts
on which the judgment is based; that is the proper function of the trial court.”).
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to the police. And it is simply a mistake to think that we can know the full extent
of Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks’s efforts to retrieve their cell phone based on Mr.
Widner’s testimony. He repeatedly acknowledged he did not know the full extent
of Ms. Vo’s interactions with them. 3
Courts must distinguish between the everyday use of the term
“abandonment” and its use in a context that may result in the loss of Fourth
Amendment protections. Here, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks ended their efforts to
recover their lost cell phone only after several days of active searching. Although
this might colloquially be referred to as “abandonment,” it is not nearly what is
necessary to show abandonment so as to deprive someone of their Fourth
Amendment protections.
For Fourth Amendment purposes, “the critical inquiry is whether the person
prejudiced by the search . . . voluntarily discarded, left behind, or otherwise
relinquished his interest in the property in question so that he could no longer
retain a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to it at the time of the
search.” United States v. Ramos, 12 F.3d 1019, 1022 (11th Cir. 1994) (quotation
& emphasis omitted). “Whether abandonment occurred is a question of intent
3

For example, the following exchanges were had during Mr. Widner’s testimony: Q:
“And you don’t know how many [photos] that your wife looked at?” A: “No, I do not.” Q:
“You don’t know one way or the other whether [Ms. Vo sent a text to the phone]?” A:
“Correct.” Q: “So you don’t know whether your wife gave [the Fort Myers Police Department]
the details of the communication that she had had with the individual that called with respect to
the phone?” A. “No.” Q: “And have you spoken to your wife further about what the nature of
that conversation was?” A. “No, sir, not really.”
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which may be inferred from acts, words and other objective facts.” Id. at 1022–23
(quotation omitted). Our precedent teaches us to consider case-specific facts in
determining whether abandonment has occurred. Id. at 1025.
There are many ways to affirmatively abandon something. For example, a
person may abandon something by words. See, e.g., United States v. Pirolli, 673
F.2d 1200, 1204 (11th Cir. 1982) (finding abandonment where ownership of items
was explicitly disclaimed by a defendant who said “I never saw them before in my
life”). He may abandon it by deed. See, e.g., United States v. Brown, 473 F.2d
952, 954 (5th Cir. 1973) (finding abandonment where the defendant had buried a
suitcase in a chicken coop in an open field). He may abandon it by a combination
of the two. See, e.g., United States v. Colbert, 474 F.2d 174, 177 (5th Cir. 1973)
(en banc) (finding abandonment where two individuals, in response to police
questioning, verbally disclaimed any interest in briefcases and began to walk away
from them). He may abandon it by saying nothing under circumstances in which
any reasonable owner in the same position would speak up to claim possession.
See, e.g., United States v. Cofield, 272 F.3d 1303, 1307 (11th Cir. 2001) (per
curiam) (finding abandonment of bags where a person set them down and did not
claim ownership after the police made a loud announcement asking if the bags
belonged to someone nearby). He may abandon it by a failing to act after
promising to reclaim the property. See, e.g., United States v. Lehder-Rivas, 955
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F.2d 1510, 1521–22 (11th Cir. 1992) (finding abandonment where an owner left a
suitcase with an acquaintance for over a year after explicitly promising and failing
to retrieve it within three months). He may abandon property by giving it away
with the intent to accept its return only at his discretion. See, e.g., United States v.
McKennon, 814 F.2d 1539, 1546 (11th Cir. 1987) (per curiam) (finding
abandonment of a suitcase containing cocaine where the defendant gave the
luggage to another person to carry and admitted that he did not intend to retake
possession unless the carrier reached the final destination without incident).
But a person may not abandon property for Fourth Amendment purposes by
mere loss, carelessness, or accident, where he has made reasonable efforts to
reclaim the property. See, e.g., Ramos, 12 F.3d at 1026 (11th Cir. 1994) (finding
no abandonment where the defendant left a briefcase in a temporarily leased
condominium a few hours after the scheduled checkout and telephoned the
condominium office the next day to seek the briefcase’s return). In light of their
repeated efforts to reclaim it, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks demonstrated no intent
to abandon the cell phone.4 The fact that they could have conceivably done more
4

To my knowledge, no other Circuit has ever found abandonment for Fourth Amendment
purposes where property was lost and the owner made reasonable efforts to recover it. The
Seventh Circuit explained abandonment precedent from federal Courts of Appeals nicely:
There are three general types of abandonment cases, which are based on the[] two
[main] indicia of abandonment[, explicit denials of ownership and physical
relinquishment of the property]. The first type is characterized by the presence of
a fleeing defendant who relinquishes an object to make his flight easier or because
discarding the item might make it easier for him to later claim that he never
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is simply not sufficient, in my view, to constitute abandonment under the Fourth
Amendment.
I also understand the Majority to equate Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks’s
purchase of a new phone with abandonment of the old. But we must be mindful of
the status cell phones now have as property. They function as “cameras, video
players, rolodexes, calendars, tape recorders, libraries, diaries, albums, televisions,
maps, or newspapers.” Riley v. California, __ U.S. __, __, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2489
(2014). They have “immense storage capacity” and allow people to “collect[] in
one place many distinct types of information—an address, a note, a prescription, a
bank statement, a video.” Id. When Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks lost their cell
phone, they lost troves of information necessary for navigating modern life.
Buying a replacement phone allowed them to begin reaccumulating this
possessed it. . . . The second type of case is closely related to the first, for in socalled “garbage cases” the defendant places material in or near a refuse receptacle
that is readily accessible to the public, and in which he usually places other
discarded materials. . . . In the third type of case, the defendant is usually caught
red-handed with or near a container of contraband, whereupon he denies that the
container or its contents are his.
United States v. Basinski, 226 F.3d 829, 837 (7th Cir. 2000) (citations omitted). This case does
not look like any of these situations, where a finding of abandonment might be appropriate.
Other Circuits have found in cases like this one, where there was no verbal denial of an
interest in the property or clear physical relinquishment of it (such as by throwing the property
away, unconditionally giving it to another person, or dropping it and running away from it), that
a person had not abandoned the property. See, e.g., United States v. Infante-Ruiz, 13 F.3d 498,
501–02 (1st Cir. 1994); United States v. Scrivner, 680 F.2d 1099, 1100–01 (5th Cir. 1982);
United States v. Basinski, 226 F.3d 829, 837–38 (7th Cir. 2000); United States v. James, 353
F.3d 606, 616 (8th Cir. 2003); United States v. Lopez-Cruz, 730 F.3d 803, 808–09 (9th Cir.
2013); United States v. Garzon, 119 F.3d 1446, 1450 (10th Cir. 1997); United States v. Most,
876 F.2d 191, 196–97 (D.C. Cir. 1989).
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information. But getting a new phone does not mean they abandoned their interest
in the unique information contained in the lost phone.
In my view, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks took all the reasonable steps a
responsible owner of lost property would have taken to recover it. That being the
case, they did not “abandon” their lost cell phone after three days. I would hold
that Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks maintained a possessory interest in the phone
during the entire twenty-three-day seizure.
II.
If indeed Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks did not abandon their cell phone, we
are left to decide whether the twenty-three-day delay in seeking a search warrant
for the phone rendered the seizure of the phone—and the resulting search of their
home—unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. No one disputes that police
seized the cell phone without a warrant on June 4 and held it until June 27. On that
date, Agent Enterline got a search warrant.
The reasonableness of a delay in getting a search warrant is “determined in
light of all the facts and circumstances, and on a case-by-case basis,” balancing the
interests of the government and the private citizens. United States v. Mitchell, 565
F.3d 1347, 1351 (11th Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (quotations omitted). The
reasonableness of the delay is decided upon review of several factors, including:
the significance of the interference with the person’s possessory interest; the length
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of the delay; whether the person consented to the seizure; and the government’s
legitimate interest in holding the property as evidence. United States v. Laist, 702
F.3d 608, 613–14 (11th Cir. 2012).
In United States v. Mitchell, 565 F.3d 1347 (11th Cir. 2009) (per curiam),
this Court held that an interference with an individual’s possessory interest in his
computer was especially significant because computers are “relied upon heavily
for personal and business use” and may “store personal letters, e-mails, financial
information, passwords, family photos, and countless other items of a personal
nature.” Id. at 1351. This principle, of course, applies to modern cell phones. See
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2489 (“The term ‘cell phone’ is itself misleading shorthand;
many of these devices are in fact minicomputers that also happen to have the
capacity to be used as a telephone.”). I know of no basis for disputing that people
like Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks have a strong possessory interest in their cell
phones.
In United States v. Laist, 702 F.3d 608 (11th Cir. 2012), this court held that
two factors might diminish a person’s significant possessory interest: (1) the
possessor is given the opportunity to (and actually does) remove anything he wants
from the item before it is confiscated; or (2) the possessor admits to the presence of
and actually shows the contraband on the device to government officials. Id. at
616. Neither of these diminishing factors is present here. Mr. Johnson and Ms.
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Sparks lost their phone, and were never given any opportunity to remove any
information from it before it was seized. Nor did they make any admission to the
Cape Coral Police Department that the phone contained contraband. The officers
who possessed the phone had not actually seen the contraband. During the period
of delay in getting the search warrant, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks continued to
have a strong possessory interest in their cell phone that we must weigh heavily in
deciding whether the delay was reasonable.
The length of the delay—twenty-three days—also weighs against finding it
was reasonable. In Mitchell, we concluded that a similar twenty-one-day delay
was unreasonable. Mitchell, 565 F.3d at 1353. In Laist, although we found a
twenty-five-day delay reasonable based on facts not present here, we cautioned
that such a long delay was “far from ideal.” Laist, 702 F.3d at 617. We deemed
the delay in Laist justifiable because the government officials began preparing the
warrant “on the very day” they received notice that a search warrant was necessary.
Id. at 618. Also noteworthy, the warrant in Laist contained “extensive quantities of
non-boilerplate information” that had been “drafted originally for th[at] warrant
application.” Id.
I see no similar justification for the delay here. Agent Enterline certainly did
not start working on the warrant on the day she got the cell phone. Neither did she
begin preparing it while she was back in town from June 8–10, or when she was
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again in town from June 16–20. Also, the warrant she produced contained little
original information. A mere half-page was anything other than boilerplate, and
the warrant took less than half a day to prepare. Finally, Agent Enterline’s
justification for the delay—that she had been out of town to take part in three
separate trainings and had been told the search warrant was “no big deal, look into
it when you get back”—was precisely the type of justification for delay this court
rejected in Mitchell. See Mitchell, 565 F.3d at 1352–53.
While a person’s consent to the seizure of his property may justify some
delay in procuring a search warrant, Laist, 702 F.3d at 614, there was clearly no
consent here. Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks did not even know the police had their
phone, and the police made no effort to secure their consent to the seizure.
Finally we must consider “the government’s legitimate interest in holding
the property as evidence.” Laist, 702 F.3d at 614. We know that Agent Enterline
had not seen images of child pornography on the cell phone. That makes this case
different from Laist. See id. at 616. This case is also not like Mitchell because the
defendants had not told Agent Enterline there was contraband on the phone. See
Mitchell, 565 F.3d at 1349 (finding even an admission by the defendant
insufficient to bolster the government’s interest because “until an agent examines
the [item’s] contents, he cannot be certain that it actually contains child
pornography,” id. at 1351). Agent Enterline had been told only that the phone
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“may or may not contain child pornography.” This remark, in my view, is not
enough to create a government interest in keeping custody of the phone sufficient
to justify the twenty-three-day delay in seeking a search warrant.
I would hold that the government’s twenty-three-day delay rendered the
seizure of the cell phone, and the resulting search of Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks’s
home, unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
III.
As I said at the outset, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks entered a guilty plea in
this case, conditioned on their reservation of their right to appeal the Fourth
Amendment issues discussed extensively here. Under Federal Rule of Criminal
Procedure 11, a defendant who “prevails on appeal” may withdraw a conditional
plea. Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2). The holding I propose would, as I understand it,
make Mr. Johnson and Ms. Sparks prevailing parties. This would in turn allow
them to withdraw their guilty pleas.
I respectfully dissent to the judgment of the Majority.

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