Hard drive abandoned after owner left it in his home for an extended period of time

The conviction of an Ohio man has been reinstated after the Ohio Supreme Court found his hard drive to be abandoned and thus not protected by the Fourth Amendment. State v. Gould, 2012 Ohio 71 (2012).

In December 2005, the defendant moved his belongings into his mother's house. He left his hard drive with her and told her not to "let anybody get their hands on it." When he moved six months later, he took all of his things except the hard drive. His brother told their mother that it likely contained child pornography, and she returned it to the defendant. In August 2006, the defendant's older brother moved in with him. Shortly thereafter, the defendant stole his brother's truck, left all of his belongings, and contacted no one in the family. Later, the brother sold the defendant's possessions in a garage sale, but their mother reclaimed the hard drive.

The mother took the hard drive to law enforcement and suggested that the defendant had abandoned it. After multiple failed attempts to contact the defendant, the police obtained consent from the mother to search the drive, which contained images of the defendant engaging in sexual acts with a seven-year-old girl.

The trial court found the defendant guilty on multiple charges. On appeal, the conviction was reversed after the court found that the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the hard drive. The Ohio Supreme Court, however, reinstated the conviction, holding that the hard drive was abandoned "by leaving it in his Toledo apartment without the ability to exert control over it." As such, he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the drive, and the search did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

As you might can discern from this post's title, I am not entirely comfortable with this decision - or at least the precedent it creates. I can certainly imagine a scenario where a person leaves their home for four months, and it not be abandonment. The court failed to specify why they ruled as they did. Did he stop paying rent? Is it because he stole a truck and stopped communicating with his family? Did it make a difference that he had a roommate? It just seems plausible that a person could leave a shared home for four months - even by stolen truck -  and retain an expectation of privacy in their possessions.