Kentucky district court grants suppression of CP evidence

In United States v. Kinison, No. 12-57-JBC (E.D. Ky. 2012), the district court granted a motion to suppress evidence in a child pornography case due to lack of probable cause at the time of the warrant.

The defendant's girlfriend told police that the defendant had sent text messages to her phone describing child pornography and sexual activity with children. Police reviewed the text messages and used them to obtain a search warrant to search defendant's home. The girlfriend told police that his home computer had been used to view the child pornography. Using Kentucky's property valuation system, police determined that the defendant owned the home they were to search.

In a motion to suppress, the defendant argued that the warrant was not supported by probable cause. The district court agreed as the officer "performed no investigation to corroborate his informant's suggestion that the other party to the text messages in the affidavit was actually [defendant]." Also, the officer did not seek to verify that the defendant was the sender of the messages, taking the girlfriend's "assertions at face value." Law enforcement could, of course, have verified this easily by subpoena.

Thus, the affidavit failed "to supply any justification ... for the investigators' unquestioning reliance on [the girlfriend's] statements" and "to establish a nexus between the alleged evidence and the property to be searched."