## Facts

- Luke Noel Wilson contacted an 18-year-old through a modeling website and hired her for photo shoots that escalated from clothed to nude sessions in hotel rooms, involving alcohol and payment.
- The 18-year-old introduced Wilson to her two younger sisters (both under 16), and during subsequent “photo shoots” Wilson sexually abused them, resulting in charges for oral copulation of a child 10 or younger and lewd acts on a child.
- Separately, Google used an automated hash-matching system to compare uploaded files against a database of hash values for previously identified child sexual abuse images.
- In 2015, four files sent from Wilson’s Gmail account matched known hash values; Google generated a report with the files and transmitted it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which forwarded it to law enforcement.
- A task-force investigator viewed the four files without a warrant, confirmed they depicted child sexual abuse images, then obtained a search warrant for Wilson’s residence and recovered additional evidence.
- The trial court denied Wilson’s motion to suppress the digital evidence; a jury convicted him of one count under Penal Code § 288.7(b) and three counts under § 288(a), with multiple-victim findings on two counts, and he received an indeterminate term of 45 years to life.

## Issues

1. Whether the investigator’s warrantless viewing of the four images forwarded through NCMEC violated the Fourth Amendment, requiring suppression of evidence.
2. Whether substantial evidence supported the § 288(a) convictions, including intent to arouse, appeal to, or gratify sexual desires.
3. Whether Wilson was denied due process notice of the nature of the charges and theories at trial.
4. Whether the prosecution introduced knowingly false evidence or violated disclosure obligations under *Brady v. Maryland*.
5. Whether instructional error, responses to jury questions, prosecutorial misconduct, cruel or unusual punishment, or cumulative error required reversal.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in full.
- The court held Google’s hash-matching and reporting were private action, not government conduct, and the officer’s warrantless viewing did not exceed the scope of Google’s prior private search; suppression was properly denied.
- The court found substantial evidence supported the § 288(a) convictions, including proof of sexual intent inferred from conduct and surrounding circumstances.
- The court rejected due process notice, false-evidence, and *Brady* claims for lack of supporting showings of deficiency, suppression, materiality, or prejudice.
- The court found no reversible instructional error or prosecutorial misconduct and upheld the mandatory 45-years-to-life sentence against cruel-or-unusual punishment challenges.
- The court rejected cumulative error because it found no prejudicial errors.

## Legal Principles

- A service provider’s automated detection and reporting of child sexual abuse images, undertaken for the provider’s own purposes and without government involvement, is a private search for Fourth Amendment purposes.
- Under the private-search doctrine, law enforcement may examine material revealed by a private search without a warrant when the government review does not materially expand the scope of what the private party already identified.
- Substantial evidence review requires viewing the record in the light most favorable to the judgment; intent under Penal Code § 288(a) may be inferred from the defendant’s conduct and the surrounding circumstances.
- A *Brady* violation requires favorable evidence, suppression by the prosecution, and resulting prejudice (materiality).
- Sentences mandated for serious sex offenses against children do not violate state or federal proportionality standards absent a showing of gross disproportionality as applied.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Wilson’s convictions and 45-years-to-life sentence, concluding that Google’s hash-based reporting was a private search and the officer’s warrantless viewing of the same files did not exceed that search, and further finding no reversible error in the evidence, trial proceedings, or punishment.


People v. Wilson, 56 Cal. App. 5th 128, 270 Cal. Rptr. 3d 200 (Ct. App. 2020)