The Third Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear oral arguments in four local cases on May 16 on St. Thomas, including that of John Jackson, the onetime Olympic boxer who was sentenced in February 2023 to 25 years in prison on rape and child pornography charges and is seeking to suppress evidence from a search of his home that was used at trial.
Jackson was arrested on Feb. 6, 2019, and indicted two months later on charges including child pornography, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, first-degree rape and second-degree aggravated rape.
Evidence presented at his trial and in court documents shows that Jackson trolled St. Thomas high schools and social media for his victims, including one who was 14 and in the ninth grade when they met. He was arrested after a friend of one of the victims convinced her to tell her father about the relationship, and he filed a police report. The child pornography conviction stems from a video found on the girl’s cellphone that Jackson made of them having sex when she was 15 and he was 30.
Jackson, now 35, was found guilty on all counts after a four-day trial in April 2022, and in February 2023 was sentenced to 25 years behind bars. He filed an appeal in November. Currently incarcerated at the low-security Federal Correctional Institution in Miami, Florida, according to the Bureau of Prisons website, he is represented by Matthew M. Robinson of Robinson & Brandt, PSC in Lexington, Kentucky.
Jackson contends that the V.I. District Court erred in failing to grant his motion to suppress all evidence stemming from the search of his Mandahl home on Feb. 23, 2019, which he alleges violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. He claims there was not probable cause for authorities to believe they would find child pornography based merely on a cell phone video of him having sex with one of the victims that was “a spontaneous one-time incident that occurred more than 30 days before the warrant application.”
In addition, the search exceeded the scope of “this overbroad” warrant, according to Jackson’s appeal, because authorities seized items and entered locations that were not listed in the warrant.
“Nothing suggested the items seized contained evidence of child pornography. Because [Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Alicia Blyden] allowed officers to seize items beyond the scope of the warrant, her conduct transformed the search into an invalid general search,” it says.
The government claims that the “plain view doctrine” permitted the seizure of items outside the warrant’s scope, including a pillow and Gucci link bracelet that were visible in the video, brownies (several of the victims told police and testified in court that Jackson gave them marijuana and brownies laced with the drug), and drug paraphernalia.
While admitting defects in how the warrant was presented — Blyden gave Jackson and his attorney at the time the first page of the warrant listing his name and address, but not the affidavit that secured it, or the list of items authorities were looking for, as is normally required — the government argued that nonetheless, there was probable cause for its execution, and Jackson was not harmed by the violation.
V.I. District Court Judge Robert Molloy agreed, and in a ruling on Jan. 4, 2021, rejected Jackson’s motion to suppress the evidence, except to exclude the brownies that were seized during the search and later tested positive for marijuana.
The court will also hear oral arguments on May 16 in the following cases:
– USA v. Samuel Pena Columna, the former Drug Enforcement Administration informant found guilty of drug smuggling by a jury in September and sentenced in January to 30 years in prison. He is seeking to have statements suppressed that he gave to police prior to be taken into custody and read his Miranda rights. The government alleges that Pena-Columna was in his vehicle at the time and free to leave, but his appeal claims that was hardly the case when three armed officers lured him to a meeting, occupied his car, questioned him for over an hour and searched through his cell phone before making an arrest.
– Clifford Boynes et al v. Limetree Bay Ventures LLC et al, in which Limetree Bay Terminals is appealing a V.I. District Court order that it supply water to St. Croix residents whose cisterns were allegedly impacted by four toxic air releases from the oil refinery on St. Croix between Feb. 4 and May 12, 2021. Now doing business as Ocean Point Terminals, the storage facility claims that when the releases occurred, it did not own, operate or control the refinery, and that the program will potentially cost it millions of dollars.
– James Codrington v. Steadfast Insurance Co. et al, concerning the rejection of an insurance claim after Codrington was injured in an accident in 2007 while riding a motorcycle on St. Croix that resulted in the amputation of his leg.
Oral arguments are scheduled to begin on Thursday, May 16 at 9:30 a.m. in V.I. District Court on St. Thomas, with each side allotted 15 minutes to state their case.
