No. 19-3534 ___________________________

United States of America

Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Joseph Keck, Jr.

Defendant - Appellant ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Little Rock ____________

Submitted: January 14, 2021 Filed: June 29, 2021 ____________ Before LOKEN, GRASZ, and KOBES, Circuit Judges. ____________ GRASZ, Circuit Judge.

Joseph Keck was convicted in the district court1 on five child-pornography- related counts. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(d); 2252(a)(2), (a)(4)(B). Without a warrant, federal agents seized Keck’s electronic devices from his van. A later warrant-

1 The Honorable James M. Moody, Jr., United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas. supported search of those devices revealed that Keck had downloaded and shared child pornography. The district court denied Keck’s suppression motion, holding that the warrantless seizure of the devices was justified. The court listed several alternative Fourth-Amendment theories to support its decision.

Keck appeals that ruling, arguing that the warrantless seizure of his devices was unconstitutional and unjustified. He also argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.

I. Background

In 2016, the Swiss federal police told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that an internet protocol (“IP”) address in Arkansas was distributing child pornography on a file sharing website known as GigaTribe. The FBI tied the IP address to Matthew Fee. Agents then questioned him. Fee, a former local law enforcement officer who was then at a police academy, pointed the FBI agents to his future father- in-law, Joseph Keck. Fee’s fiancée Danika (Keck’s daughter) did too.

Keck worked as a long-haul trucker and stayed at the Fees’ house periodically when he was in town. Several years earlier, Keck had spent thirty days in jail and paid a $16,000 fine for a child-pornography conviction.

When the agents first made contact with the Fees on a Friday night, the couple consented to the seizure and search of their personal electronic devices. Those searches came up empty. The following Monday, the FBI discovered that another jurisdiction was investigating Keck for child-pornography-related crimes. The Fees told the agents that they expected Keck to return to their house that afternoon.

The lead agent on the case asked his supervisor and the FBI’s in-house legal counsel for advice. He was advised that (1) the FBI could lawfully seize Keck’s electronic devices without a warrant to prevent Keck from destroying them, and (2) the agents needed to do so as soon as Keck returned to town. -2- When Keck arrived at the Fees’ house on Monday, two FBI agents were there waiting for him. They pulled their vehicles next to Keck’s van in the Fees’ driveway, got out, and questioned him. Keck told them he had come from Atlanta and had slept at a West Memphis, Arkansas hotel. The agents told Keck they needed his electronic media.

Keck gathered his devices—including two laptops, a cell phone, a portable hard drive, and a memory card—from his van. Initially, he only turned over two devices. But after the agents told him that lying to the FBI during an investigation is a felony, he went back to the van and got the rest. During the encounter, the agents did not yell or threaten Keck, and he could not see the