ComputerForensicsDigest.com

Brief Summary: Defendant under indictment for the possession and distribution of child pornography moved to exclude evidence seized at his home on the grounds that the search warrant was based on a flawed affidavit. A U.S. Magistrate recommended that the motion be granted and the government appealed.

Facts: Defendant was charged with two counts of possessing child pornography and three counts of shipping child pornography in interstate commerce. The charges were based on images of child pornography found on the defendant's hard drive during a search of his residence.

The defendant moved to suppress the images, arguing that the affidavit underlying the search warrant was flawed and that the warrant was therefore invalid. Defendant pointed to several factual errors in the affidavit and noted that it was not signed by the officer actually conducting the investigation but instead by a higher-ranking member of the department. The defendant also alleged that the warrant was based in part on unsworn testimony.

After a hearing on the motion, a U.S. Magistrate recommended granting the defendant's motion to suppress. The government appealed to the U.S. District Court.

Issue(s): Whether the U.S. Magistrate's recommendation to grant defendant's motion to suppress was correct.

Decision: No. The U.S. District Court overruled the Magistrate and denied the motion to suppress.

Reasoning: In United States v. Leon 468 U.S. 897 (1984), the District Court said, the Supreme Court created a "good-faith" exception to the exclusionary rule. Under that exception, evidence may be admitted if the officer executing the warrant reasonably believed that the magistrate had probable cause to issue the warrant and that it did not suffer from any technical defects.

The U.S. Supreme Court listed four instances in which an officer could not reasonably claim a "good-faith" reliance on a warrant. The District Court analyzed each in turn and concluded that none of them applied to the current case. First, the Court said, none of the mistakes in the affidavit constituted deliberate falsehoods or untruths; any errors were minor. Second, the magistrate issuing the warrant did not "abandon his judicial role" but remained neutral and impartial. Third, the indicia of probable cause was not so weak as to render acceptance of the affidavit "entirely unreasonable." Applying a "totality of the circumstances" test, the Court concluded that the magistrate's consideration of unsworn testimony resulted from mere oversight (failure to swear in the officer before his testimony), and did not fatally damage the affidavit. Finally, the Court said, the officers executing the warrant had no basis for thinking that warrant was so fatally deficient as to be invalid.