Jason Bycroft pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child under 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), (e) and two counts of possession of child pornography under 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(B), (b)(2), after investigators found videos and images in his Dropbox account. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of imprisonment totaling 292 months, followed by a lifetime term of supervised release. One special condition prohibited his possession or use of a computer with internet access at any location without prior written approval of his probation officer. Bycroft did not object to this at sentencing.
On appeal, Bycroft argued, and the Tenth Circuit agreed, that the district court failed to analyze or explain any basis for imposing the condition on internet use. District courts must tie special conditions to the statutory requirements of 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) and § 3553(a) and explain their reasoning on the record—especially for an absolute Internet ban, which demands “extraordinarily careful review.” The district court here gave only a general statement referencing § 3553(a) about the sentence overall and did not address the requirements of § 3583(d) or the specific necessity of the Internet condition.
The panel held the lack of explanation was plain error and vacated the sentence, remanding for resentencing. The court emphasized that, unlike many child-sex-offense cases, the record showed Bycroft used Dropbox for personal file storage only and there was no evidence of online acquisition, sharing, or distribution.
Appeal from Eastern District of Oklahoma.
Opinion by Ebel, joined by Matheson and Moritz.