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

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

While private search occurred, officer exceeded schope of private search by encouraging further searching

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant's boyfriend's search of computer disks was a private search, but the police expanded the private search by asking him to keep looking. People v. Wilkinson, 2008 Cal. App. LEXIS 929 (3d Dist. June 18, 2008): Although we find no California case on point, federal case law has held that police officers exceed the scope of a private search when they fail to confine their examination of the contents of computer discs to the discs the private searcher examined. (U.S. v. Runyan (5th Cir. 2001) 275 F.3d 449; see generally, Annot., Validity of Search or Seizure of Computer, Computer Disk, or Computer Peripheral Equipment (2000) 84 A.L.R.5th 1; Kerr, Searches and Seizures in a Digital World (2005) 119 Harv. L.Rev. 531.) Though not cited by the parties and not binding on us, Runyan provides a thoughtful and persuasive analysis of the issues we confront in this case...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on June 21, 2008 (boomark / email).