DES MOINES – A Mason City sex offender who was caught with drawings he made of young children after his own friend snitched on him to police won’t have his case review by the Iowa Supreme Court.
Brandon Clark Manning, age 33, was sent to prison in 2013 on a charge of sexual exploitation of a minor. He was paroled in February of 2014 and immediately came to live in Mason City in rental house on 10th Street SW. Manning was sent to prison after his friend found a zip drive in his tool bag and decided to hunt through it, and found numerous cartoon drawings Manning allegedly created of small children engaged in sex acts.
At least 23 pieces of evidence were submitted in court.
Clark appealed his conviction for sexual exploitation of a minor, claiming his right to privacy was violated by a private party seizure and the subsequent police search of a flash drive that contained illicit images. Second, he claimed the State did not offer substantial evidence he possessed the flash drive found in his tool bag. The flash drive came into the hands of police by way of private citizens who found it in Manning’s tool bag and viewed its contents before turning it over to authorities. Police opened the files on the flash drive without obtaining a search warrant.
The Iowa Court of Appeals upheld his conviction, saying that the federal and state constitutions only protect against unreasonable search and seizure by state actors, and because the police search did not exceed the scope of the private actors’ viewing of the flash drive, the justices affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress. Additionally, his conviction was affirmed because the record contains ample evidence Manning knowingly possessed the pornographic images of children saved on the flash drive.
This week, the Iowa Supreme Court decided it will not hear Manning’s case and the appeal decision will stand.
