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

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

Not wilfully exceeding scope of consent when searching for drugs and accidentally finding child porn did not void search

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Officers investigating a beating of the defendant looked in his ransacked house and bumped a computer, and the screen lit up showing an image of child pornography. Defendant's wife consented only to a search for drug activity, and the search exceeded the authority. Still, the searches were valid because the officer did not wilfully exceed the scope of consent. United States v. Wells, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54097 (S.D. Iowa July 15, 2008)*: Accordingly, the court finds that Officer Denger did not exceed the scope of Ms. Wells's consent when he opened three images of child pornography on the defendant's computer. While purposeful searching for images of child pornography would have been outside the scope of Ms. Wells's consent [see United States v...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on July 18, 2008 (boomark / email).