Court Opinion

ID: 9836919
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:15:31.789838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.314211
License: Public Domain

GIERKE, Judge
(dissenting):
I disagree with the majority’s holding that the videotapes were included within the scope of the warrant. The court below held that videotapes were not within the scope of the warrant. Unpub. op. at 6. The agent who executed the warrant did not believe that the term “photos” included videotapes. The case cited by the majority, United States v. Lowe, 50 F.3d 604 (8th Cir.1995), does not, in my view, support the position that the term “photos” includes videotapes. In Lowe the warrant authorized seizure of items “of personal identification,” and the videotapes that were seized were labeled with the defendant’s “street name.” Id. at 607. Lowe stands for the proposition that videotapes labeled with the defendant’s name were items of “personal identification”; it does not support the proposition that videotapes are “photos.”
A warrant must specifically list the items to be seized. Lo-Ji Sales v. New York, 442 U.S. 319, 325, 99 S.Ct. 2319, 60 L.Ed.2d 920 (1979). “As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant.” Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 196, 48 S.Ct. 74, 72 L.Ed. 231 (1927). In this case, the videotapes were not within the scope of the warrant. The decision to seize and view appellant’s videotapes was the product of discretion exercised by the same NCIS agent who had testified that he did not think that videotapes were within the scope of the warrant.
In United States v. Melendez, 1990 WL 109201 at *4 (E.D.N.Y. July 20, 1990), a federal district court held that photos seized *153under a warrant that authorized seizure of videotapes were illegally seized, because they were not within the scope of the warrant. In People v. Burke, 180 Misc.2d 715, 690 N.Y.S.2d 897 (N.Y.Sup.Ct.1999), a New York trial court held that a warrant for “photographs of the complaining witnesses as well as other children, as well as diaries, journals, computer disks, NAMBLA [North American Man-Boy Love Association] literature, child-related paraphernalia, photographic equipment, receipts from photo developing stores, and photo albums,” id. at 905, did not authorize seizure of “apparently unmarked” videotapes “strewn about the apartment” and not stored with identifiable pornographic materials that were lawfully seized. Id. at 906, 905.
Similarly, in Commonwealth v. Friedman, 411 Pa.Super. 628, 602 A.2d 371, 378, 380 (1992), the Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that videotapes were not within the scope of a warrant authorizing seizure of photos and sketches. While the Pennsylvania Constitution has a more stringent requirement for particularity in a warrant than the United States Constitution, Friedman is persuasive authority for the proposition that the word “photos” does not include videotapes. Friedman relies on the distinction between “visual information” such as “photos and sketches,” where the evidentiary value is immediately apparent, and items such as movie film and videotapes that require a second intrusion into the owner’s privacy in order to determine if they have evidentiary value. This same distinction was made by the Supreme Court in Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. 649, 654-57, 100 S.Ct. 2395, 65 L.Ed.2d 410 (1980) (opinion of Stevens, J.).
I also disagree with the lead opinion’s conclusion that the search can be upheld under the good-faith exception, plain view, or the independent-source doctrine. The good-faith exception applies only when the police rely on the terms of the warrant. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922-23, 104 S.Ct. 3405 (1984) (good-faith exception requires reliance on a warrant that is objectively reasonable); cf. Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 988, 989-91, 104 S.Ct. 3424, 82 L.Ed.2d 737 (1984) (good-faith exception applied where officers searched for items not in fact authorized by warrant after being assured by magistrate that the warrant was sufficient to cover items sought). I find it hard to say there was good-faith reliance on the warrant when the agent who executed the warrant did not believe that “photos” included videotapes.
I likewise disagree with the lead opinion’s conclusion that the videotapes were lawfully seized because they were in plain view. The NCIS agents were investigating a drug case. There was nothing on or around the tapes that identified them as evidence of a crime. See Walter, 447 U.S. at 653, 659-60,100 S.Ct. 2395 (opinion of Stevens, J.) (“plain view” rejected where contents of films “could not be determined by mere inspection” without use of a projector); see also Burke, 690 N.Y.S.2d at 906 (plain view doctrine not applied where videotapes were unmarked and not stored with other pornographic materials); DePugh v. Penning, 888 F.Supp. 959, 997 (N.D.Iowa.1995) (plain view rejected where photo, film, cassettes, and address book were not “of an obvious incriminating character”); Ross v. State, 59 Md.App. 251, 475 A.2d 481, 486-87 (1984) (plain view rejected where videotapes had no markings or labels indicating pornographic content).
I also disagree with the notion that the independent-source doctrine applies to this case. Appellant was not suspected of pornography or any sexual crimes. There is no evidence suggesting that the girls would have been identified and located or that they would have voluntarily come forward if the videotapes had not been seized.
In my view, there was no legal justification for seizing and viewing the videotapes. Accordingly, I dissent.