## Facts

- Ronald Scott Paul took his personal computer to a repair shop in Port Isabel, Texas, where a technician found child pornography and contacted the FBI.
- An FBI check showed Paul had a prior child-pornography offense (1986).
- After Paul retrieved the computer, agents obtained a warrant and searched his residence.
- Agents seized a computer containing numerous downloaded child-pornography images and other materials, including photographs and publications with nude images of children, videotapes of children filmed in public, children’s clothing, and related items.
- The investigation uncovered email communications about obtaining and exchanging child pornography through Internet sources and statements suggesting efforts to gain access to children through vulnerable parents.
- Paul pleaded guilty to knowingly possessing a computer hard drive containing three or more images of child pornography that had traveled in interstate commerce, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A.
- The district court sentenced Paul under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2 to five years’ imprisonment and three years’ supervised release, imposing special conditions that included a categorical prohibition on computer and Internet use.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court erred in applying U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2 in calculating Paul’s sentence.
2. Whether the district court abused its discretion under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) by imposing supervised-release conditions that completely banned Paul from using or possessing computers and from accessing the Internet.
3. Whether 18 U.S.C. § 2252A was unconstitutional as applied to Paul’s possession of child pornography on a computer hard drive.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed Paul’s conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 2252A.
- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the sentence imposed under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2.
- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the supervised-release special conditions, including the absolute ban on computer and Internet use.
- The court rejected Paul’s as-applied constitutional challenge to § 2252A.

## Legal Principles

- A special condition of supervised release is valid if it is reasonably related to the offense and the defendant’s history and characteristics, serves statutory sentencing purposes (including deterrence and public protection), and imposes no greater deprivation of liberty than reasonably necessary. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d).
- For a defendant convicted of computer-based child-pornography possession, an absolute prohibition on computer and Internet use may be upheld when the record shows the technology was closely connected to the offense conduct and presents a substantial risk of recidivism.
- Child pornography is not protected speech under the First Amendment, and Congress may criminalize its possession when linked to interstate commerce, including transmission via the Internet, consistent with the Commerce Clause.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit upheld Paul’s conviction and Guidelines sentence for possessing child pornography and approved supervised-release conditions that categorically barred computer and Internet use because the restriction was sufficiently tied to the offense and defendant’s history and was deemed reasonably necessary to deter future crimes and protect the public.


United States v. Paul, 274 F.3d 155 (5th Cir. 2001)