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E.D.Cal.: SW for computer need not dictate how search will be conducted; distinguishing Comprehensive Drug Testing

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Child pornography images on a hard drive are not stale after one year. A First Circuit case said three years. Also, deleted images can be recovered from a computer indefinitely. How a computer search should be conducted is not required. United States v. Blake, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23014 (E.D. Cal. February 24, 2010)*: There is no legal requirement that a search warrant include a specification of the precise manner in which the search is to be executed. United States v. Grubbs, 547 U.S. 90, 98, 126 S. Ct. 1494, 164 L. Ed. 2d 195 (2006). As the Tenth Circuit has explained, while a search warrant must describe with particularity the object of the search, "the methodology used to find those objects need not be described: this court has never required warrants to contain a particularized computer search strategy...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on March 17, 2010 (boomark / email).