Sometimes, when the Government seizes a computer to search it for evidence of child pornography, they make mistakes that make it possible to have the evidence suppressed on a motion by the defendant’s attorney. We recently one of these motions and wanted to share it so that people facing the horror of being dragged into court on child pornography charges would know there is hope.
In this particular case, the evidence was seized at the border when our client was flying back into the county after being overseas. The problem was that the border agent seized the computer based only on seeing one picture of a nude female standing on the beach. Also, they delayed over 6 months in completing their forensic examination of the computer and NEVER got a search warrant. The court found that, based on the specific facts of this case, the agents had violated the client’s constitutional rights and issued a suppression order.
After reading this, it is important to remember that all cases are different. In this case we were able find, through diligent analysis, a mistake that benefited our client. Only this type of analysis by an attorney experienced in these types of cases has any hope of finding the type of mistake that can result in the suppression of evidence that would otherwise certainly cause any jury to convict a defendant.
