## Facts

- An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, working undercover, purchased access to a child-pornography website; the agent’s credit-card statement reflected a charge to a bill-payment service associated with the site.
- Investigators linked Peter J. Mitchell to two credit-card charges to that same bill-payment service.
- On February 22, 2007, ICE Special Agent Thomas West, accompanied by an FBI agent, went to Mitchell’s home.
- During the encounter, Mitchell acknowledged that his desktop computer contained child pornography.
- West removed the hard drive from Mitchell’s desktop computer and seized it.
- West left town on February 25, 2007, for a training program and returned on March 12, 2007; the FBI agent did not seek a warrant while West was away.
- West applied for and obtained a search warrant for the hard drive on March 15, 2007—21 days after the seizure.
- The warrant application was supported by a 23-page affidavit that consisted largely of boilerplate, with only a small portion tailored to Mitchell.
- A forensic search of the hard drive found child-pornography images.
- Mitchell pleaded guilty to receiving electronic images of child pornography and appealed the denial of his motion to suppress the hard-drive evidence based on the delay in obtaining the warrant.

## Issues

1. Whether the government’s 21-day delay in obtaining a search warrant after seizing Mitchell’s computer hard drive rendered the seizure unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, requiring suppression of the evidence found on the drive.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit held that, on these facts, the government’s 21-day delay in seeking a warrant to search the seized hard drive was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
- The court reversed the district court’s denial of Mitchell’s motion to suppress and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.

## Legal Principles

- Even when officers lawfully seize property based on probable cause, continued retention of that property must remain reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
- The reasonableness of a delay in seeking a search warrant for seized property is assessed case by case, considering all the circumstances.
- Courts balance the individual’s possessory interest in the seized property against the government’s interests in preserving evidence and completing a proper investigation.
- Computer storage devices can carry a strong possessory interest because they may contain important personal and business information, making prolonged retention more burdensome than retention of many other physical items.
- Law enforcement must act with reasonable promptness in pursuing a warrant after a seizure; an unjustified delay can make an otherwise lawful seizure unconstitutional.
- When evidence is obtained following an unreasonable seizure caused by an unjustified delay in obtaining a warrant, suppression may be required as the remedy for the Fourth Amendment violation.

## Conclusion

United States v. Mitchell held that the government unreasonably interfered with Mitchell’s possessory interest by waiting 21 days to obtain a warrant to search a seized hard drive, and the Eleventh Circuit ordered suppression of the resulting evidence and remanded the case.


United States v. Mitchell, 565 F.3d 1347 (2009)