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CA8: GFE saved a state search warrant of flash drive for gambling information that produced child pornography

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Iowa police received information that defendant, a casino employee, was running a high stakes poker game at his residence and that he was using his personal computer in the operation. They got a search warrant for his computer and flash drive and opened the flash drive, coming upon child pornography. They closed the flash drive and applied for a new search warrant for child pornography. The court does not even have to decide probable cause because the good faith exception to the warrant requirement saves the search in any event. Under Herring, application of the exclusionary rule is fact specific, and these facts all favor not excluding. United States v. Koch, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 23629 (8th Cir. November 17, 2010): Here, the basis for the district court's decision not to suppress the challenged evidence was that the probable cause underlying the original search warrant was still effective at the time the agents viewed the flash drive and thus the warrant was not stale...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on November 22, 2010 (boomark / email).