CSAM warrant overbroad

UPDATE: From JWH, The warrant for “all data” on defendant’s cell phone violated the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement, even though it was limited to two weeks before the murder. Yet, the state’s case was so strong, the cell phone data was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Correa, 2025 Conn. LEXIS 185 (Sep. 16, 2025).

John Wesley Hall has an interesting post about an Court of Appeals for the State of Oregon about a search warrant of digital devices for CSAM.

The warrant for defendant’s computer was overbroad in seeking alleged child pornography of others than the known alleged victims, essentially based on assumptions about child pornographers. State v. Schult, 343 Or. App. 376 (Sep. 10, 2025). This is a rarity:

… However, in reading the affidavit as a whole in a common-sense and realistic fashion, taking into account both facts and inferences, we conclude that the search commands were intended to discover evidence of other crimes, in addition to those alleged against T and R. The affidavit goes into extensive detail about the common actions of child sex abusers, including the frequency with which they share images and content via digital media, methods used for gaining access to and grooming children, and pornography viewing habits. However, none of that general knowledge related to the allegations against defendant. There were no facts relating to defendant’s internet usage, pornography habits, or communications with other individuals. Defendant was accused of abusing the very young children who were already in his household; there were no allegations of him communicating with minors via the internet, social media, or any other digital means. Yet the affidavit explicitly referred to investigating possible other crimes and victims. For example, in a discussion about examining pictures, video, and other media on a suspect’s digital devices, including location and other metadata imbedded within, the warrant stated: “This information could be helpful in identifying unknown child victims whom the suspect encourage[d] or induced to create and transmit sexually explicit images of themselves to the suspect.”
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We therefore conclude that the search categories authorizing police to search for “videos, photographs, or images of children who are naked or engaged in sexually explicit conduct” and for “communications related to child molestation or the creation, distribution, or sharing of child pornography” were not sufficiently particular.