Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Fourth Amendment

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

W.D.Ky.: Defendant had REP in his work computer, but employer could consent

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Search of a work computer was valid because of the consent of the owner, despite defendant's [partial] expectation of privacy from a password. United States v. Hart, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72597 n. 83 (W.D. Ky. July 28, 2009): Mr. Hart separately asserts that the warrantless search and seizure of the computer and its contents -- as opposed to the mere discovery and location of the computer -- violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment, thereby providing an independent basis for the evidence removed from it. See docket no. 44-2 at 4 Although there is no Sixth Circuit precedent directly on point, the magistrate judge finds sound and persuasive the opinion in United States v. Ziegler, 474 F.3d 1184, 1188-92 (9th Cir. 2007), in which the Ninth Circuit determined that, given an appropriate evidentiary foundation (private office not shared with others, a password protected computer), a person could establish that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his office that would require any searches of it and its contents (including a computer) to comply with the Fourth Amendment...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on August 20, 2009 (boomark / email).