U.S. v. McGill

In prosecution on charge of possession of child pornography, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress seizure of his cell phone during encounter with his probation officer. Record showed that: (1) defendant was on supervised release at time of seizure; (2) defendant had agreed as term of his supervised release to installation of computer monitoring software and to not circumvent said software; (3) prior to instant seizure, defendant had history of violating terms of his supervised release that included defendant viewing sexually stimulating videos of minors on his cell phone; (4) probation officer visited defendant’s home and noted existence of cell phone that had not been monitored; (5) defendant, in attempting to hide said cell phone from probation officer’s view, told probation office that said cell phone no longer worked and that he was using it to charge battery of working cell phone; (6) probation officer did not believe defendant and directed defendant to give him cell phone; (7) probation officer was able to turn on cell phone and noticed picture of young boy on phone’s wallpaper; and (8) probation officer turned cell phone over to FBI, who obtained warrant and discovered child pornography on phone. Instant seizure of cell phone did not violate 4th Amendment, where phone was in plain view of probation officer, and where incriminating nature of cell phone was immediately apparent to probation officer. Also, Ct. held that seizure of cell phone was proper in context of defendant’s status as individual on supervised release, where probation officer had reasonable suspicion that defendant had violated conditions of his supervised release.