U.S. v. Rees

In prosecution on charges of receipt and possession of child pornography, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress child pornography discovered in defendant's computer pursuant to search warrants, even though defendant argued that said warrants lacked probable cause, and that officers could not rely on said warrants in good faith. Seventeen-page affidavit supplied by officer supplied sufficient probable cause to support issuance of instant warrants, where: (1) affidavit contained background information regarding peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, as well as office's experience with them and his ability to recover data, even after files had been deleted from peer-to-peer network; and (2) officer explained how he tracked computer activity on network to I.P address of computer that was linked to defendant. Fact that anyone in defendant's apartment could have downloaded child pornography, that officer did not actually open downloaded files or that one download occurred six months prior to warrant application did not require different result. Moreover, information about six-month old download was not stale, where child pornography collections tend to be kept for long period of time, and officer could have good-faith reliance on validity of warrants, since indicia of probable cause was not so lacking that officer's belief in its existence was not unreasonable.