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
- 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.