TENTH CIRCUIT FAILS TO APPLY EXCLUSIONARY RULE TO ILLEGALLY SEIZED CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Generally the exclusionary rule prevents the admission of seized evidence, the seizure of which does not comply with the Fourth Amendment. But the Supreme Court decided in Leon that evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant that failed to comply with the Fourth Amendment was admissible as long as the officers seizing the evidence acted in good faith.

In United States v. Henderson the Tenth Circuit upheld the admission of child pornography, though the search warrant for the computer failed to comply with the Fourth Amendment. The affidavit supporting the search warrant stated that Special Agent Robert Leazenby received information that a computer with a particular Internet Protocol located at the residence of Harold G. Henderson downloaded and shared two videos each of which had a secure hash algorithm (a digital fingerprint) value associated with child pornography. But the affidavit failed to mention how Leazenby found out this information. Therefore the information was not sufficiently valid to meet Fourth Amendment requirements. But in any case since Leazenby acted in good faith in serving the seach warrant in that the search warrant was not devoid of factual support for the finding of probable cause, the evidence was admissible.