## Facts

- Artem Bautista David was charged with conspiracy to import more than 20 kilograms of heroin into the United States.
- U.S. Customs seized from David a hand-held, password-protected electronic “computer memo book” containing contacts and other information connected to drug trafficking.
- After his arrest, David cooperated with agents by using the memo book to retrieve phone numbers to place monitored calls to associates while he remained in custody.
- David attempted to keep the memo book password secret, but an agent learned it by observing the password displayed without David’s consent.
- During a later interaction, Agent Peterson suspected David was deleting data (including firearm and heroin price lists), grabbed the device, and accessed its contents using the password without David’s permission.
- The agent obtained incriminating information from the memo book.
- David moved for return of the memo book and suppression of all information obtained from it and any evidence derived from that information.

## Issues

1. Whether a defendant retains a reasonable expectation of privacy in a password-protected electronic memo book such that warrantless access using a nonconsensually obtained password is an unreasonable Fourth Amendment search.
2. Whether the warrantless access could be justified by abandonment, consent, or another exception to the warrant requirement arising from the device being in government custody and David’s cooperation.

## Decision

- The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation after de novo review and granted the motion in part.
- The court held that the agent’s warrantless access to the password-protected memo book using a password obtained without consent was an unreasonable Fourth Amendment search.
- The court rejected the government’s argument that David abandoned the memo book by leaving it with agents overnight.
- The court suppressed any information and derivative evidence obtained from the memo book from the point when Agent Peterson first accessed it in David’s presence.
- The court ordered return of the memo book.

## Legal Principles

- A warrantless search is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment unless it falls within a recognized exception.
- Password protection and efforts to keep an access credential secret support a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of an electronic organizer.
- Limited disclosure of selected information during cooperation does not constitute consent to unrestricted government access to the entire device and its stored data.
- Temporary law-enforcement custody of a personal electronic device does not, by itself, establish abandonment.
- Suppression extends to unlawfully obtained information and evidence derived from it, but may be limited to the point at which unlawful access begins.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that a federal agent’s nonconsensual, warrantless entry into a password-protected electronic memo book using a surreptitiously acquired password violated the Fourth Amendment, required suppression of information and derivative evidence obtained after the unlawful access, and warranted return of the device.


United States v. David, 756 F. Supp. 1385 (D. Nev. 1991)