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CA4: Warrant did not seek child porn but evidence of threats to have sex with young boys, and that was good enough

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Anonymous e-mails were sent to a church describing sex with young boys, and the police were able to search back through the e-mail’s IP information to an e-mail account in defendant’s wife’s name. The e-mails alluded to pictures. The search warrant for the computer and the e-mails did not specifically seek child pornography, but it did seek instrumentalities of the threats to have sex with young boys, and child porn qualified. A machine gun and silencer were also found in plain view. United States v. Williams, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 1327 (4th Cir. January 21, 2010)*: While the warrant did not explicitly authorize a search for child pornography, it did authorize a search for instrumentalities of computer harassment and "photographs ...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on January 24, 2010 (boomark / email).