3rd Circuit Finds Defendant's iPhone Was a "Computer" for Purposes of Sentencing Enhancement in Connection With Grindr Sting Operation

Is an iPhone a computer? That was the question at the heart of the recent opinion of the recent opinion of the Third Circuit in United States v. Wise, 2025 WL 1163532 (3rd Cir. 2025).

In Wise, 

On Grindr (a gay dating and chat app), [Randal] Wise had the username “Cuddle??” He used the app to reach out to “Steve,” a cop posing as a fourteen-year-old boy. Wise sent him two photos of a penis and asked him to come over and have sex. But then “Steve's” account crashed.

The next day, Wise went back onto Grindr and pinged “Sean,” another cop posing as an eighth-grade boy. Wise sent “Sean” four photos of a penis and four times asked him to reciprocate. He suggested that “Sean” come to his hotel, but “Sean” demurred.

The day after that, Wise again contacted “Sean” on Grindr. Wise asked if “Sean” wanted to hang out at his place or Wise's. “Sean” suggested his own place. Wise got “Sean's” address, asked him to “[s]end a nude,” and followed up with, “U wanted to do sexual stuff?”...About twenty minutes later, Wise walked over to “Sean's” address, holding an iPhone, and was arrested. His phone contained sexual chats and child pornography of a thirteen-year-old boy.

Wise was charged with possessing and transporting child pornography, attempting to entice a minor online, and attempting to transfer obscene matter to a minor.

One of the grounds for Wise's appeal was that he should not have been given a sentencing enhancement "for using a computer in the crime under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(6) because he used an iPhone." The Third Circuit rejected his appeal, concluding as follows:

Here, the text is unambiguous. The Guideline reads: “If the offense involved the use of a computer or an interactive computer service for the possession, transmission, receipt, or distribution of the material, or for accessing with intent to view the material, increase by 2 levels.”...To decide if an iPhone counts as a computer under this Guideline, we start with dictionaries. The word “computer” means “a programmable usu[ally] electronic device that can store, retrieve, and process data.”...More specifically, it is “[a]n electronic device...which is used to store, manipulate, and communicate information, perform complex calculations, or control or regulate other devices or machines.”...Computers are “capable of receiving information (data) and of processing it in accordance with variable procedural instructions (programs or software).”...And they are often used “in the home or workplace...for handling text, images, music, and video, accessing and using the internet, communicating with other people (e.g. by means of email), and playing games.”...

The dictionary definitions of “computer” unambiguously include smartphones: Smartphones store and communicate information and host software in the form of apps, and people frequently use them to access the internet. These definitions are enough to solve this puzzle. And they are consistent with common sense. “The term ‘cell phone’ is itself misleading shorthand; many of these devices are in fact minicomputers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone.”...If we needed to look further, a smartphone also fits the evident purpose of the Guideline. Media stored digitally is easier to store and distribute. So the Guideline increases the penalty for having or distributing media involving the sexual exploitation of a minor in digital format.

We thus hold that smartphones trigger the computer enhancement. Two other circuits have gone further, holding that even basic cellphones count....Because Wise's phone was an iPhone, we need not decide whether to go so far.

-CM