Com. v. Beckman, M. ( 2020 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
:
v. :
:
:
MATTHEW ALEXANDER BECKMAN :
:
Appellant : No. 635 MDA 2019
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered February 14, 2019
In the Court of Common Pleas of Berks County Criminal Division at
No(s): CP-06-CR-0003365-2015
BEFORE: OLSON, J., DUBOW, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*
MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.: FILED JANUARY 08, 2020
Appellant, Matthew Alexander Beckman, appeals from the February 14,
2019 Judgment of Sentence entered in the Berks County Court of Common
Pleas following his conviction of three counts of Dissemination of
Photography/Film of Child Sex Acts, forty counts of Child Pornography, and
one count of Criminal Use of a Communication Facility.1 After careful review,
we affirm Appellant’s Judgment of Sentence.
The relevant underlying facts are as follows. On June 3, 2015, Special
Agent Daniel Block, who was investigating the sharing of child pornography,
traveled to 17 Eshbach Lane, Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania, to execute a search
warrant. A resident of 17 Eshbach Lane permitted agents to connect a police
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* Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
1 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 6312(c), 6312(d), and 7512(a), respectively.
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computer device, also known as a Fluke, to her router and wireless connection
to determine whether any computers or devices had been connected to her
open wireless network. Walking along Eshbach Lane, Agent Justin Leri used
the device and found a signal strength outside of 15 Eschbach Lane, which is
located next to 17 Eshbach Lane. The signal indicated that a device inside of
15 Eshbach Lane was connected to the wireless connection originating at 17
Eshbach Lane. Agents found no other signal strengths on Eshbach Lane.
15 Eshbach Lane is a duplex, with two white front doors, but only one
mailbox out front with the number “15” marked on it.[2]
Agents knocked on the door on the left side of 15 Eshbach Lane, and
Appellant answered the door. Appellant informed the agents that only the left
side of the duplex was occupied. Appellant stated that he did not have direct
access to internet, but that he did have two devices, including a laptop, that
could connect to an open wireless network. He said that his family members
occasionally connected to an open signal that they could pick up in their house.
Agents asked Appellant if they could search the internet-capable devices that
Appellant mentioned and Appellant declined. Agents informed Appellant that
the investigation centered on child pornography and that they were obtaining
a warrant to search the premises. The agents then left Appellant’s residence.3
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2The United States Post Office has registered two separate addresses for 15
Eshbach Lane: “15A” and “15B.”
3 Shortly after the agents left, they observed that two devices disconnected
from the wireless network emanating from 17 Eshbach Lane.
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Special Agent Joe Purfield spoke to Appellant’s wife outside the
residence. She related that her residence did not have internet access but
confirmed that she and her husband connect to the internet through their
neighbor’s open wireless network. She further related that her husband has
a laptop that he uses regularly.
At approximately 2:45 p.m., agents obtained a search warrant for 15
Eshbach Lane. Immediately thereafter, they executed the search warrant,
recovering several hard drives and thumb drives, as well as a laptop with a
hard drive missing. The law enforcement agents recovered images and videos
of child pornography from a thumb drive and the hard drives. They also
recovered from the hard drives chat messages between Appellant and his wife.
In those chat messages, Appellant and his wife engage in role play where he
expresses sexual interest in a minor and refers to his wife as little girl, and
she responds as if she were his daughter rather than his wife. The agents
seized all of these items from the left side of 15 Eshbach Lane, the same side
from which Appellant initially answered the door and spoke with the agents.
The Commonwealth charged Appellant with the above crimes, and on
August 28, 2015, Appellant filed an Omnibus Pretrial Motion to suppress
evidence seized from his home, and testimony about allegedly privileged chat
messages between Appellant and his wife obtained from Appellant’s electronic
devices. Appellant asserted in his Motion that the search warrant pursuant
to which the police searched his home and seized incriminating evidence was
“constitutionally defective [and had been] issued without probable cause.”
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Pretrial Motion, 8/28/15, at 1. In particular, Appellant complained that the
warrant was defectively overbroad because, while it lists the property to which
it applies as “15 Eshbach Lane, Bechtelsville, Washington Twp, Berks County,
PA 19505-9008 (left door only),” it failed to specifically limit the search of the
interior of the premises to the “left door” side of Eshbach Lane. Id. at 3.
Appellant also averred that the affidavit filed in support of the warrant
application was “so deficient, defective[,] and lacking that the magistrate who
signed the warrant could not possibly have fairly evaluated the existence of
probable cause.” Id. at 3.
Further, Appellant asserted that the chat messages containing allegedly
“confidential statements and observations” made by his wife were privileged
pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 5914.4 Id. at 1, 5.
On October 13, 2015, the suppression court held a hearing on the
Motion. At the hearing, the Commonwealth presented the testimony of
Special Agents Kurt Smith, Daniel Block, Justin Leri, and Joseph Purfield.
Appellant’s wife also testified. Relevantly, Agent Block testified that the
agents made contact with Appellant on the left side of the duplex located at
15 Eshbach Lane and that the right side of the duplex is not habitable. N.T.,
10/13/15, at 22. Agent Block testified that Appellant informed him that 15
Eshbach Lane was only one residence. Id. He also testified that 15 Eshbach
Lane has one mailbox with the number “15” displayed on it. Id. at 22-23.
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4 42 Pa.C.S § 5914, “Confidential communications between spouses,” sets
forth the marital privilege.
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Agent Block testified that he applied for and executed the search warrant on
15 Eshbach Lane. Id. at 24-25. He further testified that all of the items
seized from the residence originated in the left side of the duplex—the same
side of the residence from which Appellant answered the door. Id. at 27.
Following the hearing, the suppression court denied Appellant’s Motion,
finding that the description of the location in the search warrant was
sufficiently specific and, therefore, not constitutionally overbroad. With
respect to Appellant’s marital privilege claim, the court found it in the nature
of a Motion in Limine, and indicated that it would rule on it if Appellant raised
it as such at the time of trial.
On February 5, 2018, the Commonwealth filed a Notice of Intent to
Introduce Chat Messages at Trial and Motion for Pre-Trial Ruling, seeking to
introduce as evidence transcripts of chat messages between Appellant and
wife. The Commonwealth represented that Special Agent Joseph Purfield had
found several pages of chat messages on Appellant’s electronic devices seized
pursuant to the June 18, 2015 search warrant. Notice, 2/5/18, at ¶¶ 1-3.
The Commonwealth argued that the spousal privilege did not protect the chat
messages because Appellant’s wife would not be the person testifying as to
their contents. Id. at ¶ 6.
On February 12, 2018, the trial court granted the Commonwealth’s
Motion, permitting the Commonwealth to introduce the chat messages and
testimony pertaining to them as evidence.
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Appellant’s trial commenced on July 31, 2018. Relevant to the instant
appeal, the Commonwealth offered the testimony, over Appellant’s objection,
of Special Agent Purfield, an expert in computer forensic analysis, concerning
the content of chat messages between Appellant and his wife. N.T., 10/10/18,
at 508-23.
On October 11, 2018, the jury convicted Appellant of the above crimes.
On February 14, 2019, the trial court sentenced Appellant to an aggregate
term of four to eleven years’ incarceration followed by twenty-one years of
probation.
Appellant filed a Post-Sentence Motion to Modify Sentence. The court
held a hearing on the Motion, after which, on April 9, 2019, it modified
Appellant’s sentence as to the special conditions for sex offenders.
This timely appeal followed. Both Appellant and the trial court complied
with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.
Appellant raises the following two issues on appeal:
1. Whether the [t]rial [c]ourt erred by denying Appellant’s
Omnibus Pretrial Motion in that the evidence recovered as a
result of the search warrant should have been suppressed
because the warrant was invalid due to a lack of specificity?
2. Whether the [t]rial [c]ourt erred by not precluding the
admission of the chat logs between [Appellant] and [wife], who
were husband and wife, under the spousal privilege [statutes,]
Title 42, §[§] 5913 and 5914.
Appellant’s Brief at 64.
In his first issue, Appellant claims that the trial court erred in denying
his Motion to Suppress because the warrant pursuant to which the police
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collected incriminating evidence against him was unconstitutionally
overbroad. Id. at 78. In particular, Appellant argues that the warrant was
faulty because it only “specified an entry point into the duplex but did not limit
the search of the interior.” Id. Appellant claims that because the police had
made contact with Appellant on the left side of the duplex, they lacked
probable cause to search the whole duplex. Id. at 79. To be clear, Appellant
does not allege that the police did, in fact, search or obtain evidence from
both sides of the duplex. He argues only that, because the warrant lacked
sufficient particularity, the police could have searched the entire duplex, which
rendered the search warrant overbroad.
With respect to an appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress, our
Supreme Court has stated the following:
Our standard of review over an order denying suppression
requires us to consider only the Commonwealth’s evidence and so
much of the defense's evidence as remains uncontradicted when
read in the context of the suppression hearing record as a whole.
Where the record supports the suppression court’s factual
findings, we are bound by those facts and may reverse only if the
legal conclusions drawn therefrom are in error. However, as here,
where the appeal ... turns on allegations of legal error, the
suppression court’s conclusions of law are not binding as it is this
Court’s duty to determine if the suppression court properly applied
the law to the facts. Therefore, the legal conclusions of the lower
courts are subject to our plenary review.
Commonwealth v. Turpin, 216 A.3d 1055, 1060 (Pa. 2019) (citations and
internal quotation marks omitted).
Further, Pa.R.Crim.P. 581, which addresses the suppression of
evidence, provides in relevant part as follows:
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(H) The Commonwealth shall have the burden . . . of establishing
that the challenged evidence was not obtained in violation of the
defendant’s rights.
Pa.R.Crim.P. 581(H).
A search warrant must name or particularly describe the place or person
to be searched. Pa.R.Crim.P. 205. “A search warrant directed against [a] . .
. multiple-occupancy structure will be held invalid for lack of specificity if it
fails to describe the particular room or subunit to be searched with sufficient
definiteness to preclude a search of other units.” Turpin, 216 A.3d at 1061
(emphasis removed and citation omitted).
The particular description “must be as particular as reasonably
possible.” Commonwealth v. Belenky, 777 A.2d 483, 486 (Pa. Super.
2001). Where there is a question as to the validity of a search warrant based
on the particularity of the place described, the question is whether the
description “affected probable cause or the ability to identify the premises to
be searched.” Id. at 487. In order to determine whether a search warrant
describes a place with sufficient particularity, the court should use a “practical
common-sense approach.” Commonwealth v. Carlisle, 534 A.2d 469, 472
(Pa. 1987).
Instantly, the “specific description of premises to be searched” on the
search warrant acknowledges that the building is a duplex, with the black
number “15” on the white front door. The search warrant specifically
authorizes police to search the premises located at the physical mailing
address “15 Eshbach Ln., Bechtelsville, Washington Twp, Berks County, PA
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19505-9008 (left door only).” Application for Search Warrant and
Authorization, 6/18/15, at 1 (emphasis added). Additionally, the testimony
at the hearing on the Motion to Suppress revealed, and Appellant does not
dispute, that: (1) all of the communication between the police and Appellant
took place on the left side of the duplex; (2) the agents only searched the left
side of the duplex; (3) all of the seized evidence originated from the left side
of the duplex, and (4) Appellant represented that the duplex was one home.
Applying the “practical, common-sense” approach, we conclude that the
trial court properly found that search warrant described the location with
sufficient particularity as to “preclude a search of other units.” See Turpin,
216 A.3d at 1061; Carlisle, 534 A.2d at 472. Thus, the trial court did not err
in finding that the search warrant was not constitutionally overbroad.
Appellant, is, therefore, not entitled to relief on this claim.
In his second issue, Appellant claims that the trial court erred in granting
the Commonwealth’s Motion in Limine, which permitted the admission of the
chat message logs between Appellant and his wife and Special Agent Purfield’s
testimony about them. Appellant’s Brief at 83-85. Appellant argues that
these one-on-one communications between him and his wife are “precisely
the type of conversation that [42 Pa.C.S. § 5914] seeks to shield from public
perusal.” Id. at 83-84.
In Pennsylvania, confidential marital communications are protected
from disclosure in criminal proceedings:
§ 5914. Confidential communications between spouses
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Except as otherwise provided in this subchapter, in a criminal
proceeding neither husband nor wife shall be competent or
permitted to testify to confidential communications made by one
to the other, unless this privilege is waived upon the trial.
42 Pa.C.S. § 5914 (emphasis added). This privilege prevents a spouse from
testifying against the defendant-spouse regarding “any communications which
were confidential when made and which were made during the marital
relationship.” Commonwealth v. Davis, 121 A.3d 551, 556 (Pa. Super.
2015) (citation omitted).
Relevantly, this Court has held that the Commonwealth may introduce
at trial correspondence from one spouse to another as long as the
Commonwealth did not obtain it from the spouse. Commonwealth v.
Skibicki, 586 A.2d 446, 450 (Pa. Super. 1991). Stated another way, the
Commonwealth is not precluded from introducing marital communications
provided by a third party. Id.
In the instant case, the police discovered the chat messages between
Appellant and his wife while searching Appellant’s electronic devices pursuant
to a valid warrant. The Commonwealth then introduced the chat messages to
the jury by way of the testimony of Special Agent Purfield. Because the
Commonwealth did not obtain the chat messages from Appellant’s wife and
did not introduce them into evidence through Appellant’s wife’s testimony, but
instead by a disinterested third person, Section 5914 does not protect as the
chat messages. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in permitting the
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Commonwealth to introduce this evidence over Appellant’s objection, and
Appellant is not entitled to relief on this claim.5
Judgment of Sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 1/08/2020
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5 To the extent that Appellant also alleges in his Statement of Questions
Involved that the trial court erred in permitting the Commonwealth to
introduce the chat messages pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 5913, our review
indicates that he raised this issue for the first time in his Statement of
Questions Involved and does not provide any argument in support of this claim
in the Argument section of his Brief. Accordingly, we decline to address it.
See Pa.R.A.P. 302 (“Issues not raised in the lower court are waived and
cannot be raised for the first time on appeal.). Even if Appellant had raised
this issue before the trial court, his failure to develop it in his Brief, would
result in waiver. See Commonwealth v. Perez, 93 A.3d 829, 838 (Pa. 2014)
(reiterating that claims that an appellant fails to developed with argument or
citation to controlling authority are waived).
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