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Federal Judiciary

: California Appellate Report

U.S. v. Giberson (9th Cir. - May 30, 2008)

By Shaun Martin

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I agree with Judge Wallace.

They validly stopped you because your plates expired. At which point they saw your false identification, which properly subjected you to arrest. At which point they validly searched you incident to the arrest and discovered evidence that you were evading your child support allegations. Which is not only wrong, but is particularly interesting since you used to be the person in charge of section of the Minnesota Department of Human Services that ensured that other people paid their child support.

At which point they validly got a warrant to search your home for evidence relating to your evasion of child support. During the execution of which they saw in plain sight stuff that you clearly used to make fake identification documents from your computer. At which point they validly got a search warrant for your computer to look for further evidence relating to that stuff. During the execution of which they properly stumbled across some child pornography while looking for the false identification stuff. Which validly led them to get a second warrant to look for child pornography on the computer, of which there was a vast quantity. Which put you in the pokey for five years.

So expired plates = false identification = evasion of child support = child pornography. It's an unlucky chain of events as far as you're concerned, but it's entirely proper. Every step of the way.

Yet another reason not to drive around with expired plates, or make and carry false identification, or evade child support if you're a huge afficianado of child pornography. Or anything else illegal, for that matter.

Full post as published by California Appellate Report on June 04, 2008 (boomark / email).