United States v. Giovanni Blood

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION APR 27 2011
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 10-30119
Plaintiff - Appellant, D.C. No. 9:09-cr-00054-DWM-1
v.
MEMORANDUM*
GIOVANNI DELAWARE BLOOD,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Montana
Donald W. Molloy, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted April 13, 2011
Seattle, Washington
Before: BEEZER, KLEINFELD, and SILVERMAN, Circuit Judges.
The United States appeals interlocutorily from the district court’s order
suppressing evidence of child pornography contained on Giovanni Delaware
Blood’s laptop computer in a case in which Blood is charged with receipt of child
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2). We have jurisdiction under
18 U.S.C. § 3731. We reverse.
Generally, law enforcement officers must have a warrant to seize personal
property; however, officers may seize a container without a warrant if they “have
probable cause to believe that [it] holds contraband or evidence of a crime, . . .
pending issuance of a warrant to examine its contents, if the exigencies of the
circumstances demand it or some other recognized exception to the warrant
requirement is present.” United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 701 (1983).
A laptop computer is entitled to the same Fourth Amendment protection as
other closed containers and personal effects. See United States v. Arnold, 533 F.3d
1003, 1009-10 (9th Cir. 2008). To justify the warrantless seizure of a laptop, the
government bears the burden of proving both (1) the existence of “‘circumstances
that would cause a reasonable person to believe that [a seizure] was necessary to
prevent . . . the destruction of relevant evidence . . . or some other consequence
improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement efforts,’” United States v.
Brooks, 367 F.3d 1128, 1135 (9th Cir. 2004) (quoting United States v. McConney,
728 F.2d 1195, 1199 (9th Cir. 1984) (en banc)), and (2) that a warrant “could not
have been obtained in time,” United States v. Struckman, 603 F.3d 731, 738 (9th
Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting United States v. Good, 780
F.2d 773, 775 (9th Cir. 1986)).
Blood admitted to the federal agents that his laptop contained child
pornography files and that he had, in the past, deleted child pornography files from
his computer because he knew them to be illegal. The fragile and easily
destructible nature of the digital evidence at issue raises undeniable concerns
regarding “loss or possible destruction of contraband by the owner.” United States
v. Licata, 761 F.2d 537, 541 (9th Cir. 1985). It would be unreasonable for federal
agents to send a suspect out the door with a bag of heroin and an instruction not to
destroy or tamper with the evidence while they seek a telephonic warrant. It would
be similarly unreasonable to expect agents to do so with other such easily
destructible contraband, including the digital images of child pornography in this
case. “The usual risk of loss of contraband left unsecured and the overall
circumstances in this case constitute exigent circumstances sufficient to justify the
warrantless intrusion on [Blood’s] possessory interest in the [laptop].” Id. at 544.
The district court reasoned that the agents had time to secure a warrant and
were not compelled to act by exigent circumstances because the digital evidence at
issue was safe from destruction, the laptop having been “secured” in the agents’
possession. However, this reasoning begs the question. If the evidence at issue is
secure from destruction only because it has been seized by government agents, it
follows that the seizure is justified by the exigencies of the situation.
Because the seizure of the laptop did not violate the Fourth Amendment and
there are no independent grounds upon which to find Blood’s consent to search
vitiated, we hold that the district court’s invalidation of Blood’s consent to search
the laptop as “fruit of the poisonous tree” was also erroneous.
The district court’s order granting Blood’s motion to suppress is
REVERSED and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with
this memorandum disposition.