Opinion ID: 1311152
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Timely execution of the forensic analysis search warrants

Text: Under Missouri law, a search warrant shall expire if it is not executed and the return made within ten days after the date of the making of the application. Mo.Rev.Stat. § 542.276(8). Brewer argues this provision renders void the warrants that authorized the forensic analyses of the seized computer media. However, evidence seized by state officers in conformity with the Fourth Amendment will not be suppressed in a federal prosecution because state law was violated. United States v. Hornbeck, 118 F.3d 615, 617 (8th Cir.1997) (quoting United States v. Bieri, 21 F.3d 811, 816 (8th Cir.1994)). Brewer, citing United States v. Brunette, 76 F.Supp.2d 30 (D.Me.1999), aff'd, 256 F.3d 14 (1st Cir.2001), argues that the forensic analyses of the seized computers violated the Fourth Amendment because the Missouri warrants became void after ten days. Thus, he argues, the forensic analyses were warrantless searches, which are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. See Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 1716, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009). The Government argues that rather than examining whether the warrants were void under state law, we ought to examine whether they violated the Fourth Amendment because probable cause had dissipated. We find the First Circuit's approach to this issue in United States v. Syphers, 426 F.3d 461, 468-69 (1st Cir. 2005), persuasive. Syphers also involved a computer search after the time period that state law permitted for a warrant to be executed, though Syphers argued that this violated Rule 41's ten-day limit on search warrants. The First Circuit held that [t]he products of a search conducted under the authority of a validly issued state warrant are lawfully obtained for federal prosecutorial purposes if the warrant satisfies constitutional requirements and does not contravene any [Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure]-embodied policy designed to protect the integrity of the federal courts or to govern the conduct of federal officers. Id. at 468 (quoting United States v. Mitro, 880 F.2d 1480, 1485 (1st Cir.1989)). As previously discussed, the search warrants here were validly issued under Missouri law. In line with the First Circuit's analysis in Syphers, we begin our Fourth Amendment analysis with these validly issued warrants, not after applying Section 542.276(8) which Brewer argues would render the warrants void. [5] See id. at 468-69 (analyzing the timeliness of a warrant's execution under the Fourth Amendment's unreasonable delay standard, rather than the statutory ten-day limit). Therefore, we agree with the Government that because the Fourth Amendment and Rule-embodied policies at issue here are designed to prevent the execution of a stale warrant, Syphers, 426 F.3d at 469, our analysis of the delay in executing the warrants considers only whether the delay rendered the warrants stale. A warrant becomes stale if the information supporting the warrant is not sufficiently close in time to the issuance of the warrant and the subsequent search conducted so that probable cause can be said to exist as of the time of the search. United States v. Palega, 556 F.3d 709, 715 (8th Cir.2009) (quoting United States v. Wagner, 989 F.2d 69, 75 (2d Cir.1993)). Important factors to consider in determining whether probable cause has dissipated... include the lapse of time since the warrant was issued, the nature of the criminal activity, and the kind of property subject to the search. United States v. Gibson, 123 F.3d 1121, 1124 (8th Cir.1997). Brewer does not argue that probable cause to believe that evidence of child pornography would be found on the computers no longer existed at the time they were forensically analyzed. Indeed, applying Gibson to the facts of this case makes it clear that the delay had no effect on the probable cause determination. The computer media at issue here were electronically-stored files in the custody of law enforcement. Because of the nature of this evidence, the several months' delay in searching the media did not alter the probable cause analysis. Therefore, since probable cause to believe the media contained child pornography continued to exist at the time the January 17 and October 5 search warrants were executed, the forensic analyses did not violate the Fourth Amendment.