## Facts

- Vivian, Louisiana police went to Kenneth Stapleton’s trailer after receiving a complaint of illegal drug activity.
- Stapleton gave oral permission and signed a written consent form allowing officers to search the trailer.
- When officers entered, they immediately saw a bag that appeared to contain marijuana seeds on a computer table and a computer screen saver showing a marijuana field.
- Officers arrested Stapleton, advised him of his Miranda rights, and continued searching the trailer, finding drug paraphernalia, more marijuana seeds, and equipment associated with indoor marijuana growing (including lighting, a timer, tubing, a bucket, and related supplies).
- While seated in the patrol car after receiving Miranda warnings, Stapleton told an officer he had downloaded from the internet instructions for building an indoor marijuana-growing system and saved the information on his computer.
- Police seized Stapleton’s computer and about 20 floppy disks and obtained a warrant to search the computer for marijuana-related information (including instructions connected to indoor growing devices).
- While executing that warrant and reviewing the floppy disks, an investigator encountered images depicting underage males engaged in sex acts.
- The investigator stopped the search and obtained a second warrant authorizing a search of the computer and floppy disks for evidence of child pornography.
- Continuing the search under the second warrant, the investigator found additional child-pornography images on the floppy disks.
- Stapleton was charged with pornography involving juveniles under La. R.S. 14:81.1(A)(3). The trial court denied his motion to suppress the images, a jury found him guilty as charged, and the court imposed a five-year hard-labor sentence without benefits and required sex-offender registration.

## Issues

1. Whether images of child pornography found on floppy disks should have been suppressed because the initial computer-search warrant did not specifically list floppy disks and no exception to the warrant requirement justified the disks’ search or seizure.

## Decision

- The Louisiana Second Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress.
- The court affirmed Stapleton’s conviction and sentence.
- The court concluded the officers’ initial entry and search were lawful because Stapleton voluntarily consented.
- The court concluded officers had a lawful basis to seize the computer and disks and obtain the first warrant to search for marijuana-related information, given what was observed in the trailer and Stapleton’s statement linking the computer to marijuana-growing instructions.
- The court held the investigator’s initial encounter with child pornography occurred during a lawful search for the items described in the first warrant and that the contraband images were admissible under plain-view principles.
- The court approved the investigator’s decision to stop and obtain a second warrant before continuing to search for child pornography.

## Legal Principles

- A warrantless search is valid when based on voluntary consent, and appellate courts generally defer to trial-court credibility determinations supporting voluntariness.
- Probable cause may justify seizure of a computer and related storage media when there is reason to believe they contain evidence of the offense being investigated.
- A search warrant’s scope is guided by the items described and the places where those items could reasonably be found, including electronic storage used with the targeted computer evidence.
- Under the plain-view doctrine, officers may seize evidence discovered during a lawful search when they are lawfully in a position to view it, have lawful access to it, and its criminal character is immediately apparent.
- When officers encounter evidence of a different offense during a lawful digital search, stopping and obtaining a new warrant before continuing to search for that different evidence supports the reasonableness of the continued search.

## Conclusion

The court held the child-pornography images found on Stapleton’s floppy disks were admissible because officers lawfully entered and searched the trailer by consent, lawfully seized the computer-related media and searched it under a marijuana-related warrant, encountered the images while executing that authorized search, and then obtained a second warrant before continuing the search for child pornography.


State v. Stapleton, 924 So. 2d 453 (2006)