Courts says being sent child porn emails give enough grounds for search

San Francisco (CA) - A federal appeals court has ruled that the police can search a computer after someone has been sent child pornography emails. While this may seem like common sense, the judge also ruled that the police don’t need to prove that the person had solicited or even read the messages.

The appeals court made the ruling in the case of Kenneth M. Kelley’s computer who is awaiting trial on possessing and receiving child pornography material. Federal agents seized his computer in February 2005 after discovering that he had been sent emails from a child pornography distributor.

Kelley’s attorneys argued that people often receive unwanted emails and a lower court agreed, ruling that the search illegal. In that ruling, the judge said the police need evidence that the suspect intentionally asked for or read the emails. Prosecutors then appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Pamela Rymer wrote the majority opinion and said that police only need to demonstrate a fair probably of willingness on the suspect. This means that a single email containing child pornography would probably be a SPAM email or could have been mistakenly sent, but a person receiving dozens of such emails would likely belong to a network of child pornography peddlers.

You can read the mind-numbing 20-page opinion at the official Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals webpage.