United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 18-2513 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MICHAEL L. CHAPARRO, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Western Division. No. 3:16-cr-50010-1 — Frederick J. Kapala, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED DECEMBER 11, 2019 — DECIDED APRIL 13, 2020 ____________________

Before FLAUM, HAMILTON, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. A jury found Michael Chaparro guilty on three felony charges for viewing and transporting child pornography. The charges arose from three crimes sep- arated by significant gaps in time: viewing child pornography on a hard drive in July 2013, transmitting child pornography files over the Internet in August 2014, and viewing child por- nography on a smartphone in November 2014. Chaparro was sentenced to three concurrent prison terms of 210 months 2 No. 18-2513 each. On appeal he challenges his convictions on three distinct grounds: the sufficiency of the evidence that he was the per- son using the electronic devices; the admission at trial of a statement that he made to Pretrial Services; and allegedly im- proper remarks by the prosecutor during rebuttal. The first and third challenges were not raised in the dis- trict court and provide no basis to disturb the convictions. Granted, the government’s case could have been stronger as to the identity of the devices’ user. The computer forensics led investigators to a home, not to an individual, and little evi- dence showed that Chaparro resided at the relevant street ad- dress before December 2014. Nevertheless, there was suffi- cient evidence to sustain the convictions on plain-error re- view. Any improper rebuttal comments did not affect Chap- arro’s substantial rights. The admission of Chaparro’s pretrial services statement was an error, though. When Congress created Pretrial Ser- vices, it made pretrial services information “confidential” and specifically prohibited its admission “on the issue of guilt in a criminal judicial proceeding.” 18 U.S.C. § 3153(c)(1) & (3). This rule may protect some accused defendants, but its most important benefits accrue to the judicial system as a whole. Confidentiality helps pretrial services officers obtain the in- formation needed to make quick and accurate recommenda- tions about pretrial release and detention. This case concerns a judge-made impeachment exception to Congress’s mandate of confidentiality. In his pretrial inter- view, Chaparro had said that he lived at the scene of the crimes on all the relevant dates. The government left the rec- ord blank on that key point during its case in chief. Chap- arro’s lone witness, his uncle Eddie Ramos, then testified that No. 18-2513 3 Chaparro did not live at the address until just before his ar- rest. As rebuttal, the government sought to call the pretrial services officer who interviewed Chaparro. The district court allowed the testimony, over objection, relying on cases from other circuits that have recognized an exception to pretrial confidentiality for impeachment. See, e.g., United States v. Griffith, 385 F.3d 124 (2d Cir. 2004). Those precedents were inapposite, and it was a legal error to admit Chaparro’s statement to Pretrial Services. Chaparro’s words were not a prior inconsistent statement by Ramos, the testifying witness. Instead, the government used them for “impeachment by contradiction” against Ramos. Despite the “impeachment” label, someone else’s contradictory statement is relevant only if it is off