## Facts

- Army Criminal Investigative Command investigated suspected fraud and theft involving James McCarthy’s businesses, American Boiler and Industrial Property Management (IPM).
- In November 2003, agents obtained a warrant to search Stavros Ganias’s accounting office for records and computer data relating to the business, financial, and accounting operations of IPM and American Boiler.
- Agents executed the warrant by creating complete forensic images of three computer hard drives, copying all data, including files unrelated to IPM or American Boiler.
- After reviewing the images and extracting responsive materials, the government retained the full forensic images, including nonresponsive data, for more than two and a half years.
- In 2006, IRS agents investigating Ganias for tax evasion obtained a second warrant to search the previously imaged drives for evidence of Ganias’s personal tax offenses.
- Evidence from the 2006 search was used to prosecute Ganias; the district court denied his suppression motion, and he was convicted of tax evasion.
- On appeal, Ganias challenged (1) the retention and later search of nonresponsive data under the Fourth Amendment and (2) the denial of a new trial based on a juror’s Facebook activity.

## Issues

1. Whether the Fourth Amendment was violated by the government’s long-term retention of a complete hard-drive image containing data outside the scope of the 2003 warrant, followed by a later search of that nonresponsive data under a 2006 warrant.
2. Whether a juror’s Facebook comments about the case and “friending” of another juror deprived Ganias of a fair trial.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit panel vacated the conviction and remanded.
- The panel held that, although full-drive imaging may be a reasonable method to execute a computer-search warrant, the government’s prolonged retention of nonresponsive data was an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
- The panel concluded that using the retained nonresponsive data years later to investigate a different offense rendered the retention constitutionally unreasonable and required suppression of evidence derived from the 2006 search.
- The panel rejected the juror-misconduct claim, finding no sufficient showing of bias or prejudice and no abuse of discretion in denying a new trial.

## Legal Principles

- Copying an entire hard drive for off-site review constitutes a Fourth Amendment seizure of the data, even if the physical device remains with the owner.
- A warrant’s particularity limits not only what may be searched for and seized but also constrains retention practices after responsive data have been identified.
- Full-drive imaging can be permissible to enable sorting and segregation of responsive files, but it does not authorize indefinite government retention of nonresponsive data.
- Once the government has completed the warranted search and isolated responsive materials, continued retention of nonresponsive data must be reasonable in duration; otherwise, an initially lawful seizure can become unreasonable.
- Long-term retention of nonresponsive digital data risks converting a specific warrant into a general search by preserving broad personal and business information for later investigative use.
- Juror social-media activity warrants relief only upon a sufficient showing of bias, prejudice, or improper influence affecting the verdict.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit panel held that the government’s multi-year retention of nonresponsive data from a full-drive image exceeded the 2003 warrant’s scope and became an unreasonable seizure, requiring suppression of evidence later obtained from that retained data and vacatur of Ganias’s conviction, while separately finding no fair-trial violation from the juror’s Facebook conduct.


United States v. Ganias, 755 F.3d 125 (2d Cir. 2014)