Tenth rejects challenges to search warrant, admission of evidence in sex trafficking case

United States v. Palms, 21 F.4th 689 (10th Cir. 2021): A jury convicted Palms of sex trafficking by force and coercion, attempted obstruction of sex trafficking enforcement and transporting an individual for prostitution. On appeal, he made two arguments. First, he said the district court should have suppressed the evidence obtained from his cell phone because the warrant for the phone was insufficiently detailed and the search was not restricted enough. Second, he argued the district court violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to due process, a fair trial, compulsory process and to present a defense and abused its discretion when it excluded sexual behavior evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 412. The panel sided with the district court. It held the warrant to search his phone was sufficiently particular and the search was reasonable. It also held the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding prior ‘sexual behavior’ evidence under Rule 412. Regarding the warrant, Palms said, although it was limited to evidence of human trafficking, it still did not describe the items to be seized with particularity. The panel’s analysis began by looking at whether the offense of ‘human trafficking’ was defined narrowly enough so that nothing was left to the officer’s discretion. Although search warrants do not have to identify specific statutes for the crimes to which they are limited, here, Oklahoma law explicitly prohibits human trafficking. Its definition includes both sex and labor trafficking. Given this statutory definition of ‘human trafficking,’ the officers executing the warrant would have understood what evidence the warrant allowed them to seize. Thus, the panel concluded, the warrant sufficiently limited what the officers could search and seize. Palms also contended that the evidence the officers took from his cell phone “was too broad.” To address this issue, the panel “focused on how the computer search was conducted rather than what was searched.” Since the officer testified he could not search the cell phone within narrower parameters, he “extracted a byte-for-byte copy” by which he “captured a vast amount of information, including personal information unrelated to the suspected crime.” The panel was fine with this method. First, evidence of the crime could be found anywhere on the phone and the officers wouldn’t know in which files to look until they actually reviewed each file. Second, “if the file did not contain relevant evidence, the officers moved on immediately.” At trial, Palms wanted to present evidence that M.W. understood and participated in commercial sex work before she met him. The district court wouldn’t allow it. On appeal, he said that decision violated his constitutional rights to a fair trial, to confront witnesses against him and to present a full defense. The panel disagreed. Even if the evidence is relevant, it must be probative of a central issue to be required by the Constitution. M.W.’s sexual behavior was not probative of a central issue. Evidence that she was a prostitute and solicited customers online before she met Palms was “irrelevant to whether [she] was forced or coerced into working as a prostitute at a later date.” Nor could this evidence be used to impeach her comment that she would not choose prostitution on her own. The panel reasoned her prior acts did not tend to prove that Palms did not force her to engage in prostitution. Thus, it was not evidence that was required by the Constitution. NOTE: Palms also argued that M.W.’s posting of online ads for commercial sex before he met her was not sexual behavior. Therefore, Rule 412 did not apply to bar this evidence. Since he did not make this argument in the district court and did not argue plain error on appeal, the panel held that he waived this issue.