Court Opinion

ID: 9413250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-01 22:55:22.596058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:42:09.356314
License: Public Domain

BARRY, Circuit Judge,
Concurring.
It is not disputed that when it applied for the search warrant, the government had no idea, much less evidence, that Vosburgh had ever possessed child pornography. All it knew was that during a two-minute period of time on one day in Vosburgh’s life, he attempted to access the Link, and was unsuccessful. That’s it. Paltry as that was, I agree with my colleagues that it was nonetheless “fairly probable” that evidence of that attempt would be found in Vosburgh’s apartment, that the information in the warrant application describing that attempt was not stale, and that Vosburgh’s motion to suppress was properly denied.
I write, however, to note my disappointment that, given how little the government *541knew about Vosburgh, it somehow believed it appropriate to spend the first fifteen pages of the eighteen-page affidavit supporting the warrant application with what it conceded was “boilerplate” — boilerplate which anything but subtly suggested that Vosburgh, whose name was never mentioned, was someone the government had no reason to believe that he was — a “collector” of child pornography, a child pornographer, and perhaps even a pedophile. Moreover, the boilerplate went into considerable detail describing, for example, the “collection” of the “collector” as revealing his “private sexual desires and intent” and representing his “most cherished sexual fantasies involving children,” and into graphic detail describing the numerous ways in which those fantasies can be turned into reality, including the sexual gratification a collector may derive from actual physical contact with children.
The only purpose of those many pages of boilerplate was, at least in my view, to assure that the warrant issued, which assuredly it did. Indeed, the affidavit apparently convinced my colleagues that, although there was not even an allegation that Vosburgh ever possessed child pornography, there was reason to believe he was nonetheless a “collector” or, at least, he “could be.” (Op. at 530.)
I have nothing against boilerplate per se. But I am deeply concerned when information and innuendo as serious as that seen here is used so inappropriately. Surely the government wants to win, but it must never forget its obligation to win fairly.