United States of America v. Jeremy J. Huart

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 13‐2075
U NITED STATES OF A MERICA ,
Plaintiff‐Appellee,
v.
J EREMY J. HUART,
Defendant‐Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Western District of Wisconsin.
No. 3:12‐cr‐00114‐wmc‐1 — William M. Conley, Chief Judge.
____________________
A RGUED SEPTEMBER 23, 2013 — D ECIDED N OVEMBER 22, 2013
____________________
Before EASTERBROOK , SYKES , and T INDER , Circuit Judges.
T INDER , Circuit Judge. Jeremy J. Huart appeals the denial
of his motions to suppress pictures found on a cell phone he
possessed while serving part of his sentence in a halfway
house. Because Huart had no reasonable expectation of pri‐
vacy in the seized cell phone or its contents, we affirm the
district court’s decision.

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2 No. 13‐2075
I. Background
In 2008 Huart pled guilty to one count of possessing
child pornography, and was sentenced to 65 months’ im‐
prisonment and three years of supervised release. On May
11, 2011, he was transferred to the Rock Valley Community
Program, a privately operated halfway house in Janesville,
Wisconsin, that contracts with the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”)
to house and supervise a number of federal prisoners who
are near the end of their incarceration terms. A copy of the
rules governing inmate behavior was provided to Huart up‐
on his arrival. One of these rules stated that “[d]uring intake,
all belongings will be searched and inventoried. Any new
items brought into the facility or removed from the facility
will be reported to staff so the inventory can be adjusted.”
Huart was not permitted to possess a cell phone at Rock Val‐
ley, and the rules governing inmates who were allowed to
have cell phones further specified that “ANY STAFF may
request at ANY TIME to view the contents of [an inmate’s]
cell phone with or without reason.” Before beginning his
stay at Rock Valley, Huart also signed a form entitled “Con‐
ditions of Residential Community Programs,” which ex‐
plained that he was “in the custody of the U.S. Attorney
General serving [a] sentence.” He was also subject to several
other conditions, including frequent searches of his living
area by Rock Valley staff.
On the morning of August 19, 2011, a Rock Valley em‐
ployee conducting a random search of Huart’s room found
an LG model 200 cell phone on his bed. The assistant direc‐
tor of the halfway house searched the phone and discovered
approximately 214 images, many of which were child por‐
nography. Huart admitted to possessing the phone and the

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No. 13‐2075 3
images. On October 13, FBI Special Agent Bryan Baker re‐
ceived the cell phone from the halfway house staff, and ob‐
tained a search warrant on December 8. Unfortunately,
Huart’s cell phone was passcode protected, and it eventually
had to be sent to FBI Headquarters in Quantico, Virginia for
analysis. 1 Agents did not unlock the phone and locate the
images until February 14, 2012, and Special Agent Baker re‐
ceived the phone back on July 26, 2012. The warrant to
search the cell phone specified that the search was to be con‐
ducted before December 15, 2011.
Prior to trial in the United States District Court for the
Western District of Wisconsin, Huart filed two motions to
suppress the contents of the cell phone, both of which were
denied. The district court, adopting the findings of the mag‐
istrate judge, held that Huart did not have a reasonable ex‐
pectation of privacy against searches of his cell phone at the
halfway house, and furthermore that the search of his phone
was conducted properly under the warrant once Special
Agent Baker turned on the phone and attempted to access
the data. The court held that the government’s later efforts to
crack the phone’s passcode protection were conducted
promptly and in compliance with the terms of the warrant.
On February 13, 2013, Huart pleaded guilty to one count of
possession of child pornography, but he reserved his right to
appeal the denial of his suppression motions.
1 The record does not disclose how the Rock Valley assistant director
was able to search the phone from the outset, while Agent Baker could
not. One likely explanation is that the passcode‐protection mechanism
on the phone had not been triggered by the time the assistant director
found the images.

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4 No. 13‐2075
II. Discussion
When hearing an appeal of a district court’s denial of a
motion to suppress evidence, we review the court’s legal
conclusions de novo, and its factual findings for clear error.
United States v. Jackson, 598 F.3d 340, 344 (7th Cir. 2010).
Huart presents two arguments for suppressing the images
found in his phone. First, he contends that he enjoyed a rea‐
sonable expectation of privacy in the device, and that its con‐
fiscation and the subsequent search of its contents unlawful‐
ly violated that privacy. Second, he argues that, because the
FBI failed to break his passcode and examine the contents of
the phone before the warrant’s expiration date, the search
was essentially warrantless. Because we hold that Huart
lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the halfway
house, any search of a phone he brought onto the premises
did not require a warrant. Therefore we need not reach
Huart’s second contention. 2
“Whether an expectation of privacy exists for Fourth
Amendment purposes depends upon two questions: 1)
whether the individual, by his conduct, has exhibited an ac‐
tual expectation of privacy; and 2) whether the individualʹs
expectation of privacy is one that society is prepared to rec‐
ognize as reasonable.” United States v. Yang, 478 F.3d 832, 835
(7th Cir. 2007). The inquiry is therefore both subjective, in
that it requires the individual to manifest his own belief that
2 We do note that, under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(e)(2)(B),
a warrant for electronically stored information is executed when the in‐
formation is seized or copied—here, when the Rock Valley staff seized
the phone. Law enforcement is permitted to decode or otherwise analyze
data on a seized device at a later time. Huart provides no reason to
doubt that Rule 41(e)(2)(B) would defeat his contention, if reached.

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No. 13‐2075 5
he has privacy; and objective, in that this subjective expecta‐
tion must conform to accepted societal expectations. It is
well settled that prisoners have no reasonable expectation of
privacy in the belongings they keep with them. Hudson v.
Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526 (1984) (“Society is not prepared to
recognize as legitimate any subjective expectation of privacy
that a prisoner might have in his prison cell”); see also Peck‐
ham v. Wis. Depʹt of Corr., 141 F.3d 694, 696 (7th Cir. 1998)
(noting “Hudsonʹs abrogation of Fourth Amendment protec‐
tions against unreasonable searches [of] prisonersʹ cells.”)
Huart argues that, because a halfway house is a more le‐
nient and less structured environment than a prison, this
court should recognize a limited expectation of privacy for
individuals serving their sentence there. Inmates living in
Rock Valley are permitted to wear their own clothes and
bring personal items into the facility, as long as they are in‐
spected and are not prohibited under the house’s regula‐
tions. Some inmates are able to obtain day passes and leave
the facility unsupervised for certain approved purposes.
Huart analogizes his stay at the halfway house to a term of
probation. The Supreme Court has recognized that a search
of a probationer’s home, for example, is permissible when
the search is designed to ensure compliance with the condi‐
tions placed on his freedom, or else is supported by reasona‐
ble suspicion of criminal activity; the Court has not endorsed
general, suspicionless searches of probationers. See United
States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 121 (2001); Griffin v. Wisconsin,
483 U.S. 868, 874–76 (1987). Huart urges a similar approach
to this case. He contends that we must balance society’s di‐
minished security interests in monitoring him against his
partially restored liberty interests while he lives at the half‐
way house.

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6 No. 13‐2075
Although this court has not considered the appropriate
level of privacy to be recognized for inmates of a halfway
house, we have little difficulty concluding that Huart lacked
both an objective and subjective expectation of privacy ex‐
tending to either his phone or its contents. Upon arriving at
the halfway house, Huart signed the “Conditions of Resi‐
dential Community Programs” form, which explained that
Huart was “in the custody of the U.S. Attorney General serv‐
ing [a] sentence.” By contract, Rock Valley was under the
operational control of the BOP. His situation was therefore
much more closely analogous to that of an inmate living in a
prison, rather than a probationer. The Supreme Court has
held that a suspicionless search of a parolee is reasonable
under the Fourth Amendment because “‘parole is an estab‐
lished variation on imprisonment of convicted criminals.’”
Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843, 850 (2006) (quoting Morris‐
sey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 477 (1972)). Likewise, Huart’s stay
at the halfway house was simply one particular way an in‐
mate may serve a custodial sentence.
More specific to this case, Rock Valley’s rules provided
that, “[d]uring intake, all belongings will be searched and
inventoried. Any new items brought into the facility or re‐
moved from the facility will be reported to staff so the inven‐
tory can be adjusted.” Huart was not permitted to possess a
cell phone at Rock Valley, and therefore any phone he
brought into the facility was contraband subject to search
and confiscation. In addition, the rules governing inmates
who were allowed to have cell phones specified that “ANY
STAFF may request at ANY TIME to view the contents of
[an inmate’s] cell phone with or without reason.” These
rules, which Huart implicitly agreed to obey, demonstrate
both that he had surrendered any expectation of privacy in

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No. 13‐2075 7
the contents of his cell phone, and that society was not pre‐
pared to recognize any such expectation.
Huart’s attempts to avoid this conclusion are unpersua‐
sive. He notes the Rock Valley rules permit the staff only to
“request” to view the contents of a cell phone, and suggests
that inmates are free to decline. This argument has two criti‐
cal flaws. First, Huart was never granted cell phone privileg‐
es, and therefore the staff was not constrained by this provi‐
sion. He was on notice that the phone was subject to search
and confiscation once he brought it into the halfway house.
But more importantly, the rule in question provides that
“[r]efusal to ANY STAFF to surrender mobile device for
random or suspect viewing upon request will result in deni‐
al of cell phone privileges.” An inmate at Rock Valley is
therefore not free to reject a search of his cell phone. The
negative consequences of a refusal may be less severe than
they would be in a prison, but they are nevertheless de‐
signed to compel compliance. Inmates with phone privileges
are essentially faced with the choice to permit suspicionless
searches of their phone, or else not have a phone at all. In no
instance, therefore, do they enjoy the private use of a cell
phone.
Finally, Huart argues that the government’s seizure of his
cell phone violated his privacy because it was a trespass. See
United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945 (2012). But the phone was
contraband brought into a BOP‐contracted facility. It was not
a trespass for the Rock Valley Staff to seize contraband on
the halfway house’s grounds. Moreover, even if Jones ap‐
plied to this case, it would establish only that a search within
the meaning of the Fourth Amendment occurred, not that it
was unreasonable.

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8 No. 13‐2075
Because Huart lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy
in his cell phone or its contents while living at the Rock Val‐
ley halfway house, the search that uncovered the phone and
the images stored on it does not implicate the Fourth
Amendment. See United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113
(1984). We therefore do not reach the questions of whether
he consented to a search, or whether it was adequately sup‐
ported by reasonable suspicion.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s
denial of Huart’s motions to suppress.

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