Nine alleged victims of child sexual exploitation sued Stark County Sheriff Steven Sloan and Deputy Gary Bent under Section 1983, alleging the officers violated their substantive due process rights when they gave Jason Musselman access to explicit images during a 2019 investigation. According to the complaints, Musselman was supposed to help identify victims in a file-sharing collection called "Blue Breeze," but instead kept the images for personal use and was later convicted on child pornography charges, receiving a 35-year prison sentence.
Writing for a unanimous panel, Circuit Judge Taibleson affirmed the district court's dismissal of the constitutional claims, holding that the plaintiffs failed to establish a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause. "Although Musselman's crimes were vile, plaintiffs have not alleged a viable substantive due process claim," Taibleson wrote.
The court emphasized that recognizing the claimed privacy right would require "breaking new ground" and demanded "a careful analysis of the history of the right at issue"—an inquiry the plaintiffs failed to conduct. As Taibleson explained, "the scope of substantive due process is very limited," and judges should be "reluctant to expand the concept."
The case arose from a January 2019 investigation when the Stark County Sheriff's Office in Illinois discovered the "Blue Breeze" Dropbox file containing sexually explicit images of local underage girls. Deputy Bent, who served as both a county deputy and Toulon Police Chief, enlisted Musselman's help because of his IT experience and history of assisting with internet-related investigations. However, Musselman was an auxiliary police officer for the Toulon Police Department with no formal training in handling child pornographic materials and was not a Sheriff's Office employee.
The court acknowledged that the officers' "handling of the Blue Breeze files left much to be desired," but held that "the Due Process Clause is not a vehicle for judges to fashion evidence-sharing protocols in child pornography cases." The panel emphasized that recognizing such a right without historical grounding would be inappropriate, noting that plaintiffs had "made no effort to conduct that historical inquiry or to show that their claimed right satisfies the Glucksberg criteria."
The ruling leaves intact the plaintiffs' ongoing claims against Musselman under federal victim-protection statutes and state tort law. The consolidated cases involved three separate civil actions that had been joined for discovery and appeal purposes.