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

Heading: Seizure of Computer Contents

Text: 28 The warrant authorized the seizure of personal communications related to the offense. Although there were presumably communications on the computers that did not relate to the offenses, [a] search does not become invalid merely because some items not covered by a warrant are seized. United States v. Henson, 848 F.2d 1374, 1383 (6th Cir. 1988). In Henson, a case affirming convictions involving false odometer statements, we rejected a Fourth Amendment challenge to the seizure of documents and computer files that were unrelated to the offenses because we concluded that it would have been unreasonable to require police to sort through extensive files in a suspect's office in order to separate out those items that were outside the warrant. Id. at 1383-84; see also Davis v. Gracey, 111 F.3d 1472, 1481 (10th Cir. 1997) (finding no Fourth Amendment violation when defendants seized a bulletin board system computer that contained personal communications unrelated to the crime under investigation); United States v. Hay, 231 F.3d 630, 637-38 (9th Cir. 2000) (finding no Fourth Amendment violation in the search and seizure of a computer system in a child pornography investigation); United States v. Upham, 168 F.3d 532, 536 (1st Cir. 1999) (same). In the instant cases, when the seizures occurred, defendants were unable to separate relevant files from unrelated files, so they took the computers to be able to sort out the documents off-site. Because of the technical difficulties of conducting a computer search in a suspect's home, the seizure of the computers, including their content, was reasonable in these cases to allow police to locate the offending files.