Opinion ID: 773807
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cincinnati Computer Connection Bulletin Board System

Text: 4 In early 1995, there was a complaint lodged with the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department about on-line obscenity, and RECI, a division of the sheriff's department, began investigating several electronic bulletin board systems, including the CCC BBS. The CCC BBS computers were operated by Robert Emerson in Union Township (Clermont County), Ohio. 2 The system, according to plaintiffs, included thousands of subscribers from the Greater Cincinnati area, the United States and even overseas. Guest Brief at 5. Users could, with a password, send e-mail to subscribers or to others on the internet. They could also participate in chat room conversations, on-line games, and conferences, where they could post or read messages on many topics, and they could download files such as computer programs and pictures. 5 RECI officers assumed an undercover identity and obtained access to the adult part of the bulletin board system, where they downloaded sample images. A detective presented more than one hundred of these images to a Hamilton County municipal court judge, who determined that forty-five of them were obscene. RECI officers then prepared a search warrant, which identified the forty-five obscene images. The affidavit attached to the warrant listed the offenses in question as pandering obscenity (Ohio Rev. Code § 2907.32) and possessing criminal tools (Ohio Rev. Code § 2923.24). RECI showed the warrant to attorneys in the Hamilton County prosecutor's office and edited it after this meeting. The revised warrant authorized the search and seizure of computer hardware, software, financial and computer records, and personal communications, limiting the items searched or seized to those that had been used in the offense. RECI officers then presented the warrant to a Clermont County municipal court judge, who signed the warrant, directing it to the police chief of Union Township, located in Clermont County. 6 On June 16, 1995, members of RECI and the Union Township Police Department went to the home of Robert Emerson to execute the warrant. The officers asked Emerson to locate the obscene images on his system so that they could seize only those files; Emerson denied knowledge of obscene images on the computer and placed a call to his lawyer. While everyone waited for the attorney to return the call, the Union Township officers left the house. Emerson eventually stated that he did not know where the images were on the computer. Several hours after the police's arrival, with still no word from the lawyer, the RECI officers began dismantling the computer system to take it away; Emerson then said that the images were on the large file server. The officers, skeptical of his statement, seized the large and small file servers and took them to the police station. 7 Deputy Sheriff Ausdenmoore explained the way the computer search proceeded at the station. He said that he used a computer program to locate the forty-five obscene files according to the file names listed in the warrant, and he also searched for unlicenced software. He testified that once he had located the image files, he did not review the rest of the seized property. Plaintiffs, on the other hand, allege that defendants read e-mail on the seized system. 8 On August 7, 1995, plaintiffs filed this suit against the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department, RECI, Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis, and Deputy Sheriffs Dale Menkhaus, James Nerlinger, and David Ausdenmoore. The class of CCC BBS users was certified on July 5, 1996. Sometime during the pendency of the suit, defendants returned the computer equipment to Emerson. On March 31, 1998, the magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation to grant the defendants' motions for summary judgment on the ECPA, Fourth Amendment, and corollary Ohio constitutional claims, and to grant qualified immunity to the individual defendants on the Fourth Amendment claim. The district court adopted the recommendation on September 30, 1996, and later granted defendants' renewed motion for qualified immunity and summary judgment on the remaining claims, dismissing the case on August 5, 1999. 9