Sixth Circuit okays warrantless seizure to prevent destruction of evidence

In United States v. Bradley, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 13752 (6th Cir. 2012), the Sixth Circuit held that a 26-hour delay in obtaining a search warrant after seizing a laptop was not unreasonable as the defendant may have deleted evidence.

A Kentucky investigator was using hash values to search for distributors of child pornography over a peer-to-peer network. After finding a distributor's IP address, it was tracked to a local fire station. Police went to the station and asked the defendant if they could use software to search his computer for child pornography. He consented, but the search did not load correctly. The defendant then consented to allow the investigator to obtain his GUID (a unique number for each installation of the software). The GUID matched the computer they were looking for, the investigator seized the computer and obtained a warrant the next day in order to perform a further search.

On appeal, the defendant argued that the seizure of the computer without a warrant was a violation of the Fourth Amendment because there was no consent or exigent circumstances. The Sixth Circuit, however, disagreed, finding that exigent circumstances existed. Had the laptop been left with the defendant, he might have destroyed the data or the laptop itself, reasoned the court. Further, "the government's interest in deterring the production and dissemination of child pornography is significant," outweighing the property interests of the defendant. Because the investigator waited until a search warrant was obtained before continuing the search, the seizure was only a de minimis intrusion upon the defendant's rights.

The court also determined that the seizure was reasonably executed. The defendant argued that another officer could have stayed at the fire department to ensure that data was not deleted while the investigator obtained a warrant. The court noted that this was "the better path" but the seizure was not necessarily unreasonable. Also, because of "the intricacies of the warrant application, ... the 26-hour delay was not unreasonable."