State v. Quam

Jul 23, 2026
20260110

AFFIRMED.

Opinion of the Court by Jensen, Justice.

Megan Essig, Special Assistant State‘s Attorney, Grand Forks, ND, for plaintiff and appellee; submitted on brief.

Drew J. Hushka (argued) and Luke T. Heck (on brief), Fargo, ND, for defendant and appellant.

[¶1] Carson Theodore Quam appeals from a criminal judgment convicting him of five counts of possession of certain materials prohibited under N.D.C.C. § 12.1-27.2-04.1, following a conditional guilty plea preserving his right to challenge the district court’s order denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained during a search of his residence. We affirm.

I

[¶2] On September 17, 2024, two special agents from the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) interviewed Quam, a Cass County Deputy Sheriff, at the Cass County Sheriff’s Office in Fargo. The agents told Quam he was not under arrest and did not have to speak with them; he agreed to be interviewed. Without any prompting, Quam volunteered he was not looking at “kiddie porn,” explaining that term meant child pornography and pornography depicting juveniles.

[¶3] Despite the denial about viewing “kiddie porn,” Quam made several admissions. He admitted downloading a TOR (the onion router) browser—an application that allows anonymous internet browsing—on his work-issued iPhone, though he said he had deleted it and could not recall when. Quam admitted using the TOR browser to search “teen girl f**k,” which returned links to websites depicting females he estimated to be 15 or 16 years old, but claimed he could not recall whether those females were nude or engaged in sexual acts. Quam explained he used the TOR browser specifically to hide his browsing activity from his wife.

[¶4] Quam confirmed his residence in Casselton, North Dakota, with his wife, Kayla. He also admitted accessing the internet via a TV in his basement to view websites depicting females he again estimated to be 15 or 16 years old, but again claimed he could not recall whether they were nude or engaged in sexual acts.

[¶5] Quam’s interview and the admissions resulting from it came about in the course of an investigation that had begun five days earlier. On September 12, 2024, the BCI received a report from a Fargo police officer that his ex-wife had been approached after a sociology class at Minnesota State Technical College by an unknown female claiming to be friends with a law enforcement officer named Kayla. The unknown female told the police officer’s ex-wife that Kayla had caught her husband—also in law enforcement—viewing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and that he had threatened suicide if reported. Law enforcement identified Kayla as Kayla Voigt a/k/a Kayla Quam (Quam’s wife), a Cass County Deputy Sheriff.

[¶6] On September 16, 2024, law enforcement identified the unknown female as Jessica Torbenson based on her relationship with Kayla Quam’s brother. When agents approached Torbenson at her residence, Torbenson confirmed her identity but declined to speak with them and returned to her apartment.

[¶7] On September 17, 2024, agents also interviewed Kayla Quam. She corroborated the couple’s shared residence and confirmed the home had password-protected internet service. She stated Quam viewed adult pornography on his work-issued iPhone and had attended counseling for a pornography addiction, but denied ever catching him viewing CSAM or confiding that fact to anyone. She stated the only device she was aware of Quam using was his work phone, as his personal cell phone had been broken years earlier and never replaced.

[¶8] Following Quam’s interview, a BCI special agent searched Quam’s work phone and found no evidence that a TOR browser had ever been installed on it, causing the agent to doubt Quam’s account and to infer that Quam may have installed a TOR browser on some other device.

[¶9] Armed with this information, a BCI special agent applied for a search warrant for Quam’s residence, relaying all of this same information, including the agent’s training and experience in the investigation of child pornography and the recognized fact that persons who possess child pornography “almost always possess and maintain their ‘hard copies’ of child pornographic material . . . in the

privacy and security of their home or some other secure location.” A district court judge signed the search warrant the same day it was requested. Officers executed the warrant that same day, seizing eight electronic devices, including a broken Samsung Galaxy S10+ cell phone. CSAM was later discovered on the broken Samsung Galaxy S10+.

[¶10] Quam was charged with ten counts of possession of certain materials prohibited under N.D.C.C. § 12.1-27.2-04.1. He moved to suppress the evidence, arguing the warrant lacked probable cause and a sufficient nexus to his residence. After holding a suppression hearing, the district court denied the motion, finding probable cause supported the warrant and declining to reach the good-faith exception. Quam entered conditional guilty pleas to five of the counts, preserving his right to appeal the suppression ruling. He was sentenced to five years on each count, with eighteen months to serve and the balance suspended, the sentences to run concurrently.

II

[¶11] Quam contends the warrant application was unsupported by probable cause, arguing Torbenson’s refusal to speak and his wife’s denials negate probable cause, and that the warrant application contained no direct evidence of CSAM possession—only evidence of pornography use, addiction counseling, TOR browser use, and searches returning images he described as depicting 15-to-16-year-old females.

[¶12] The existence of probable cause to issue a search warrant is a question of law reviewed independently of the district court’s decision. State v. Herrick, 1997 ND 155, ¶ 12, 567 N.W.2d 336. This Court gives deference to a probable cause determination if supported by a substantial basis, resolving doubtful or marginal cases in favor of the court that approved the warrant. State v. Ebel, 2006 ND 212, ¶ 12, 723 N.W.2d 375; State v. Stewart, 2006 ND 39, ¶ 6, 710 N.W.2d 403. Probable cause exists when the facts and circumstances “would warrant a person of reasonable caution to believe the contraband or evidence sought probably will be found in the place to be searched.” State v. Rogahn, 2016 ND 93, ¶ 7, 879 N.W.2d 454 (quoting State v. Ballweg, 2003 ND 153, ¶ 11, 670 N.W.2d 490). We apply the totality-of-the-circumstances test and may not look beyond the four corners of the warrant application. State v. Black, 2021 ND 103, ¶ 22, 960 N.W.2d 820; State v. Schmalz, 2008 ND 27, ¶ 13, 744 N.W.2d 734.

[¶13] Torbenson’s refusal to speak and Kayla Quam’s denials may somewhat undercut the initial tip, but that tip is not the operative basis for probable cause here. Quam’s own voluntary admissions were far more significant. The issuing judge was entitled to consider all of the information in its “laminated total” rather than piece by piece. State v. Ringquist, 433 N.W.2d 207, 215 (N.D. 1988) (cleaned up). Direct evidence is not required: “[c]ircumstantial evidence may alone establish probable cause to support a search warrant.” Ballweg, 2003 ND 153, ¶ 18 (quoting State v. Duchene, 2001 ND 66, ¶ 13, 624 N.W.2d 668).

[¶14] Quam’s own admissions, considered in their totality, provided a substantial basis for the warrant. First, Quam admitted searching for “teen girl f**k.” Although a search query using the word “teen” is not inherently illegal and may return results depicting adults, see, e.g., United States v. Moreland, 665 F.3d 137, 145 n.4 (5th Cir. 2011), Quam himself described the results as depicting females he estimated to be 15 or 16 years old. Second, Quam separately admitted accessing his home’s basement TV to view websites depicting females he again estimated to be 15 or 16 years old—a second, independent admission likely placing CSAM-related activity directly inside his residence. Third, his claim that he could not recall whether the females were nude or engaged in sexual acts is a formulation reasonably read as evasive rather than exculpatory, particularly in light of the specific search phrase he admitted using. Fourth, Quam specifically used the TOR browser to hide his browsing from his wife, reflecting consciousness of inappropriate conduct. Fifth, the search of Quam’s work phone found no TOR browser had ever been installed on it, contradicting his account and supporting a reasonable inference that he used a different device for his anonymous browsing. The totality of the circumstances, anchored in Quam’s own admissions, established a substantial basis for the issuing judge’s determination that probable cause existed to issue the search warrant. Quam’s initial unprompted denial that he was viewing “kiddie porn” does not undermine this conclusion; the probable cause determination rests on the cumulative weight of his admissions, and his denial is simply one circumstance in that totality—one the issuing judge was entitled to weigh against everything else Quam volunteered.

III

[¶15] Quam also contends the warrant application failed to establish a sufficient nexus between evidence of CSAM and his residence. He argues his work phone—already seized—was the only device he identified, that the basement TV cannot retain CSAM, and that the affiant’s training-and-experience statements about CSAM “collectors” did not apply to him.

[¶16] Quam relies principally on State v. Mische, 448 N.W.2d 415 (N.D. 1989), where officers had searched and exhausted a prior location before seeking a warrant for a second residence, with nothing but generic speculation to connect the second location to the evidence. The facts here are materially different. Quam directly admitted accessing his home’s basement TV to view websites depicting 15-to-16-year-old females using a search phrase a person of reasonable caution could believe would depict nudity or sexual acts. That admission alone warrants a person of reasonable caution to believe CSAM-related activity occurred inside the residence.

[¶17] The district court appropriately relied on State v. Brennan, 674 N.W.2d 200 (Minn. Ct. App. 2004). Brennan found probable cause to search a defendant’s home based on four convergent factors: (1) officers’ training and experience established that individuals typically view explicit images in the privacy of their homes; (2) possession of CSAM is inherently secretive and commonly committed in private locations; (3) a laptop computer is easily transportable, such that an individual who uses a work device for illicit viewing would reasonably be expected to have related evidence on home devices; and (4) the defendant’s willingness to view CSAM on a work computer supported the inference that he would engage in such conduct at an even more private location—his home. Id. at 206.

[¶18] Each of those factors applies here. The affidavit identified the affiant’s training and experience, including that persons who possess child pornography “almost always possess and maintain their ‘hard copies’ of child pornographic material . . . in the privacy and security of their home or some other secure location.” Quam’s use of the TOR browser specifically to conceal his browsing from his wife corresponds with the inherently secretive home-based behavioral pattern Brennan describes. The TOR browser was never found on Quam’s work phone, suggesting a different device served as the vehicle for his anonymous browsing—analogous to the transportable laptop in Brennan. And unlike in Brennan, where the nexus to the residence was a matter of inference from work-based conduct, Quam directly admitted accessing what were likely CSAM-related websites via his basement TV, supplying a direct nexus to his home independent of any inference about his work phone. Quam argues the TV itself cannot store or retain CSAM, and therefore the admission establishes no nexus. That argument misreads the significance of the admission. The warrant sought electronic devices, not the TV. The admission matters because it establishes that CSAM-related browsing likely occurred within the home—through some internet-connected device inside the residence. The absence of TOR on the work phone reinforces this inference: if Quam used the home’s internet connection to access those sites via the basement TV, he did so through a device located inside the home, and that device is precisely what the warrant authorized officers to find.

[¶19] Quam’s arguments also mischaracterize the search warrant affidavit. He contends the affiant’s repeated use of the word “collector” and “collectors” throughout the training-and-experience section of the affidavit does not apply to him, and is distinct from possession. But the references to collection do not tell the whole story. The affiant’s key nexus statement provides that collectors of child pornography “almost always possess and maintain their ‘hard copies’ of child pornographic material . . . in the privacy and security of their home or some other secure location.” The word “maintain”—which Quam ignores—is the operative term connecting the behavioral profile to the inference that evidence will be found at the residence. “Maintain” denotes active, ongoing retention of material in a secure and private location, a behavioral tendency directly relevant to the nexus question and distinct from a single inadvertent encounter. By framing his argument as a distinction between “collect” and “possess,” Quam omits the affiant’s “maintain” language and the conduct it describes: not a one-time incidental exposure, but deliberate, repeated, and concealed CSAM-related activity consistent with someone who actively retains such material in a private, secure place.

[¶20] Quam’s legal argument about collection versus possession fares no better. Courts have rejected the premise that “collector” in a CSAM warrant affidavit is a term of art requiring special proof. It is a behavioral descriptor reflecting law enforcement experience that the illegality and scarcity of CSAM cause those who receive it to retain it. “[T]here is no magic ‘profile’ of child pornography ‘collectors’ that must be attested to in a search warrant affidavit.” United States v. Pappas, 592 F.3d 799, 804 (7th Cir. 2010). What the affidavit must supply is a factual foundation showing that this suspect belongs to the class the training-and-experience describes—someone who deliberately seeks out and retains (maintains) CSAM rather than a person who encounters it inadvertently. Id.; United States v. Krueger, 145 F.4th 460, 466 (4th Cir. 2025). Quam’s own admissions provide that foundation: multiple deliberate episodes of CSAM-related searching using TOR—an anonymizing browser he installed specifically to conceal his activity from his wife—with evasive responses suggesting he knew precisely what he was viewing. The case Quam relies on, State v. Secord, 614 N.W.2d 227 (Minn. Ct. App. 2000), compels no different result. In Secord, training-and-experience language was the sole basis offered to connect materials found in the defendant’s car to his residence, and it was struck because the record contained no evidence of CSAM-related activity connected to the home at all. Id. at 231. Here, Quam’s own admissions place CSAM-related browsing directly inside his residence—a factual nexus that stands independent of the training-and-experience language.

[¶21] Under the totality of the circumstances, there was a sufficient nexus connecting evidence of CSAM to Quam’s residence based on the information within the four corners of the warrant application. Brennan, 674 N.W.2d at 206; see also United States v. Chrobak, 289 F.3d 1043, 1045-46 (8th Cir. 2002) (upholding search of defendant’s residence for CSAM where the warrant application described the affiant’s training and experience and stated child pornographers “almost always maintain and possess their materials in a place considered secure due to its inherent illegality”).

IV

[¶22] Because we conclude there was probable cause to support the search warrant and a sufficient nexus to Quam’s residence, we need not address Quam’s arguments regarding the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.

V

[¶23] We affirm the judgment of conviction.

[¶24] Lisa Fair McEvers, C.J.

Jerod E. Tufte

Jon J. Jensen

Douglas A. Bahr

Michael P. Hurly, D.J.

[¶25] The Honorable Michael P. Hurly, District Judge, sitting in place of Friese, J., disqualified.