Restrictions on Computer or Internet Use as Part of a Sentence

Jamie recently blogged here about ad hoc conditions of probation, i.e., conditions other than the statutory ones. Because I’m interested in criminal law and technology, I wanted to add a follow-up post about restrictions on computer or internet use as part of a criminal sentence. It’s a timely topic, both because of Jamie’s post and because of last week’s decision by the United States Supreme Court in City of Ontario v. Quon, in which the Court observed that certain forms of electronic communications may be “essential means or necessary instruments for self-expression, even self-identification.”

And that gets right to the heart of the issue. On the one hand, computers and other electronic devices are ubiquitous and essential parts of the modern world. Restricting a defendant’s access to electronic technology and to the internet dramatically impacts the defendant’s job prospects, ability to sustain a social network, and ability to complete daily tasks such as banking or renewing a driver’s license. On the other hand, computers and the internet are, for some people, dangerous instrumentalities of crime, whether child pornography or eBay fraud. Balancing these considerations, should hackers be denied computer access? Should people who possess child pornography? If so, for how long, and with what, if any exceptions?

This Wired magazine article is a nice, brief overview of the problem if the basic outlines aren’t clear enough already. I’ll just add a few additional points.

  • Surprisingly, I couldn’t find any law on this issue in North Carolina. In State v. Howell, 166 N.C. App. 751 (2004), a defendant who was convicted of child pornography offenses was sentenced to probation with the condition that he not possess a computer. He appealed, but the opinion concerns procedural issues only — it doesn’t address the propriety of the condition of probation. After reading Jamie’s prior post, my guess is that our appellate courts would be inclined to give sentencing judges substantial leeway in fashioning conditions of probation concerning computer and internet use.
  • There are quite a few federal court opinions in this area, generally involving challenges to supervised release conditions. (Not many defendants in the federal system get probation, but most receive lengthy terms of post-release supervision.) Folks litigating these issues may want to dig into the federal cases, though the statutory constraints are a little different under federal law than under state law. I won’t attempt to synthesize all the cases, but I’ll summarize a couple of recent decisions to give you the flavor. In United States v. Russell, 600 F.3d 631 (D.C. Cir. 2010), the defendant made contact over the internet with an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl and tried to convince the “girl” to meet him for sex. The sentencing judge imposed a computer ban as a part of the defendant’s supervised release, but the reviewing court deemed that unreasonable in light of the fact that no one was actually harmed as a result of the crime, and given the necessity of computer use in connection with employment. In United States v. Moran, 573 F.3d 1132 (11th Cir. 2009), the defendant was convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon, but in light of his history of sex offenses and the fact that he was apparently not in compliance with his registration obligations at the time of his arrest, the sentencing judge ordered that the defendant not use an internet-connected computer without his probation officer’s written consent. The appellate court affirmed, succinctly summarizing the issue as follows: “Although the internet provides valuable resources for information and communication, it also serves as a dangerous forum in which an offender can freely access child pornography and communicate with potential victims.”
  • Some courts have suggested that ordering a defendant to submit to monitoring of his computer or internet usage may be an alternative to a total ban. See, e.g., United States v. Heckman, 592 F.3d 400 (3rd Cir. 2010). There are a number of cases upholding or invalidating monitoring conditions in various circumstances. Compare, for example, United States v. Goddard, 537 F.3d 1087 (9th Cir. 2008) (upholding monitoring condition for child pornography defendant), with United States v. Sales, 476 F.3d 732 (9th Cir. 2007) (rejecting broad monitoring provision for counterfeiting defendant, and stating that “[a] computer monitoring condition in some form may be reasonable. However, to comply with the Fourth Amendment, it must be narrowly tailored – producing no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary.”). Again, I’m not aware of any North Carolina law on point, though G.S. 15A-1343(b2)(9) provides for warrantless searches of sex offenders’ computers while on probation — not quite monitoring, but in the same vein — and G.S. 14-208.7(b)(7) requires sex offenders to register their “online identifiers,” which might be useful as part of a system of monitoring.

As always, we’d love to hear from you if you have experience with these issues in North Carolina or if you’re aware of cases in which these issues have arisen.

5 thoughts on “Restrictions on Computer or Internet Use as Part of a Sentence”

  1. The American Probation and Parole Association release an issue paper on this topic in December 2011, called Managing The Risks Posed by Offenders Computer Use. Here is the link http://appaweb.csg.org/Perspectives/Perspectives_V35_N4_P40.pdf. There is also a book out on the subject called The Cybercrime Handbook for Community Corrections: Managing Offender Risk in the 21st Century. Here is the link about the book http://www.ccthomas.com/details.cfm?P_ISBN13=9780398087289

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  2. I was in court fort charge of shooting in the air while I was on probation I told my side of the story on Facebook were they related my rights judge ask me later to stay off Facebook and social media or he would charge me $10,000 bill does he has the right and the power to ask me to stay off Facebook if I said nothing wrong nothing dirty and only told the truth isn’t that freedom of speech

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  3. Texas courts are very different on this monitoring issues. There are cases where the court holds the letter and says if you have a computer in your house and you a RSO, that it has to be monitored. Other cases have given some leunacy and just asked that the other spouse of the RSO take oath and state that the computer is password protected and they will not give it out.
    Another case made the wife of the RSO have her business computer monitored because the computer was in the house sometimes. .this case is in clear violation of the wifes rights but the judge would not even listen to arguments. In this same case, there was nothing at trial that showed the RSO had ever committed a computer crime but they used the conditions of probation as an excuse.

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  4. My husband was falsely accused an is fighting it in District Court of New Jersey. an was just violated for internet use due to facebook business pages i have up an running

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