BERNICE BOUIE DONALD, Circuit Judge.
This case deals with the suppression of evidence discovered during a private search and reviewed shortly thereafter by a police officer without a warrant. In 2011, defendant Aron Lichtenberger ("Lichtenberger") was arrested at the home he shared with his girlfriend, Karley Holmes ("Holmes"), for failing to register as a sex offender with the local authorities. After his arrest, Holmes hacked into Lichtenberger's personal laptop computer, where she discovered a number of images of child pornography. Holmes contacted the police,
The facts, as presented in the district court's suppression order, are undisputed.
United States v. Lichtenberger, 19 F.Supp.3d 753, 754-55 (N.D.Ohio 2014). Holmes later testified that when she was reviewing Lichtenberger's laptop, she viewed approximately 100 images of child pornography saved in several subfolders inside a folder entitled "private."
Lichtenberger was indicted on December 5, 2012, on three counts of receipt, possession, and distribution of child pornography under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(a)(2), (a)(4)(B), and (b). Before trial, Lichtenberger moved to suppress all evidence obtained pursuant to Officer Huston's warrantless review of the laptop with Holmes on November 26, 2011.
In reviewing a district court's order to suppress evidence, we consider the district court's "conclusions of law and application of the law to the facts ... de novo." United States v. Bowers, 594 F.3d 522, 525 (6th Cir.2010) (quoting United States v. Hardin, 539 F.3d 404, 416 (6th Cir.2008)) (internal quotation marks omitted). We review the district court's factual findings for clear error. Id.
The private search doctrine originated from the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984). As with any Fourth Amendment case, the facts underlying the Jacobsen case are key to its holding. In 1981, Federal Express ("FedEx") employees were inspecting a package — a box wrapped in brown paper — that had been damaged in transit. Id. at 111, 104 S.Ct. 1652. The employees
The question before the Supreme Court was whether the DEA agent's search of the package and field test of its contents — both conducted without a warrant — violated the Fourth Amendment. If so, the package and any evidence obtained pursuant to the warrant based on its contents were inadmissible. The Court began with the fundamental principle that the Fourth Amendment protects "an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable." Id. at 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652. When a government agent infringes on this reasonable expectation, a "search" occurs for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment, and the government must obtain a warrant or demonstrate that an exception to the warrant requirement applies. However, the Fourth Amendment only protects against "governmental action; it is wholly inapplicable `to a search or seizure, even an unreasonable one, effected by a private individual not acting as an agent of the Government or with the participation or knowledge of any governmental official.'" Id. at 113-14, 104 S.Ct. 1652 (quoting Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. 649, 662, 100 S.Ct. 2395, 65 L.Ed.2d 410 (1980) (Blackmun, J., dissenting)); see also id. at 115, 104 S.Ct. 1652 ("The initial invasions of [defendants'] package were occasioned by private action.... Whether those invasions were accidental or deliberate, and whether they were reasonable or unreasonable, they did not violate the Fourth Amendment because of their private character.") (footnote omitted).
Applying these principles, the Supreme Court distinguished between the invasion of privacy that resulted from the FedEx employees' search of the package and the invasion that resulted from the DEA agent's subsequent review, because "[o]nce frustration of the original expectation of privacy occurs, the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit governmental use of the now-nonprivate information." Id. at 117, 104 S.Ct. 1652. The Court held that, in a situation where "a governmental search ... follows on the heels of a private one[,]" "[t]he additional invasions of [a person's] privacy by the government agent must be tested by the degree to which they exceeded the scope of the private search." Id. at 115, 104 S.Ct. 1652. In other words, the government's ability to conduct a warrantless follow-up search of this kind is expressly limited by the scope of the initial private search. Id. at 116, 104 S.Ct. 1652 ("[T]he Government may not exceed the scope of the private search unless it has the right to make an independent search.").
The Court therefore analyzed whether the DEA agent's after-occurring search had exceeded the scope of the FedEx employees' initial search of the package. The Court found that the agent's removal of
As discussed, the government argues that Officer Huston's review and subsequent seizure fall within the ambit of the private search doctrine as articulated by Jacobsen. Lichtenberger argues that this Court's holding in United States v. Allen, 106 F.3d 695, 699 (6th Cir.1997), prevents application of the private search doctrine in his case. In Allen, we declined to extend the private search doctrine to an after-occurring search of a motel room — "a temporary abode containing personal possessions" that is akin to a home.
Id. at 699 (emphasis added).
Lichtenberger argues that, because the laptop was in his home and because laptops may contain private information similar to that in a home, our holding in Allen prevents application of
The parties do not dispute that Holmes acted solely as a private citizen when she searched Lichtenberger's laptop, that she invited Officer Huston into a common area of the residence she and Lichtenberger shared (the kitchen), and that she then showed the officer a sample of what she had found. The district court found that this fact pattern was analogous to the critical elements of Jacobsen — a private search followed closely by a governmental search — and held that the private search doctrine applied in this case. We agree. This case presents an after-the-fact confirmation of a private search. Accordingly, Jacobsen properly applies, as the district court found. Lichtenberger, 19 F.Supp.3d at 757.
Having found that Holmes' initial search was private and that Jacobsen governs, the district court erred in its ensuing analysis. Instead of proceeding to an analysis of the scope of Officer Huston's search vis-a-vis Holmes' private search, the court addressed Lichtenberger's argument that Holmes was acting as an agent of the government when she showed Officer Huston photographs on the laptop. The district court found:
Id. at 758 (quoting Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652).
Because Holmes re-opened the laptop and navigated its contents at Officer Huston's behest, the district court found that Holmes had acted as an agent of the government. Id. at 759 (relying on United States v. Robinson, 390 F.3d 853, 872 (6th Cir.2004)). Under this agency analysis, the court held that Officer Huston's review of the photographs constituted an impermissible warrantless search under the Fourth Amendment, and granted Lichtenberger's motion to suppress on that basis. Id. at 759-60.
While we agree with the district court's conclusion, we disagree with its approach. Though the district court properly found that Jacobsen governed the case at bar, the court did not apply the scope test articulated by the Supreme Court in that case. It is true that Jacobsen discusses the essential distinction between searches conducted by a government agent and those conducted by a private party, but that section of the opinion is dicta that clarifies why a government search may properly follow on the heels of a private search. 466 U.S. at 119-20, 104 S.Ct. 1652.
We find that the scope of Officer Huston's search of Lichtenberger's laptop exceeded that of Holmes' private search conducted earlier that day. This is, in large part, due to the extensive privacy interests at stake in a modern electronic device like a laptop and the particulars of how Officer Huston conducted his search when he arrived at the residence.
We evaluate "[t]he reasonableness of an official invasion of the citizen's privacy ... on the basis of the facts as they existed at the time that invasion occurred." Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 115, 104 S.Ct. 1652. Under the private search doctrine, the critical measures of whether a governmental search exceeds the scope of the private search that preceded it are how much information the government stands to gain when it re-examines the
These principles have guided our application of the private search doctrine for three decades. We have held a government search permissible — that is, properly limited in scope — in instances involving physical containers and spaces on the grounds that the officers in question had near-certainty regarding what they would find and little chance to see much other than contraband. For instance, in United States v. Bowers, the defendant's roommate's boyfriend discovered a photo album containing what he believed to be child pornography in the defendant's bedroom dresser. 594 F.3d at 524. When the summoned authorities arrived at the defendant's home, his roommate directed them to the dining room table, where the agents opened the album to view the potentially incriminating evidence. Id. at 524-25. We upheld the agents' search of the photo album because the roommate had already described the contents of the album. Id. at 526. The agents therefore knew the album contained child pornography, "learn[ed] nothing that had not previously been learned during the private search," and "infringed no legitimate expectation of privacy." Id. at 526 (quoting Jacobsen, 466 U.S. at 120, 104 S.Ct. 1652) (internal quotation marks omitted). In United States v. Richards, we held that police entry into a storage unit containing images of child pornography was sufficiently limited under the private search doctrine because "[t]he officers merely confirmed the prior knowledge that [the private party] learned earlier in the day — that unit 234 contained child pornography." 301 Fed. Appx. 480, 483 (6th Cir.2008).
By contrast, we have declined to apply the private search doctrine where an officer's search of a physical space goes beyond the scope of the initial private search. In United States v. Williams, the defendants' landlord, after receiving a high water bill, entered their rental property to check for leaks. 354 F.3d 497, 500 (6th Cir.2003). The landlord had only inspected the kitchen of the property before leaves strewn across the floor, a suspicious odor, and a lack of light or furniture in the residence convinced her to leave and call the DEA. Id. At the landlord's request, a DEA agent inspected the entire house for a water leak. Id. at 500-01. He found no leaks, but he did find a great deal of marijuana. Id. at 501. After assuming the space was not a residence
The Riley Court explained that, under the Fourth Amendment, "we generally determine whether to exempt a given type of search from the warrant requirement `by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual's privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.'" Id. at 2484 (quoting Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 300, 119 S.Ct. 1297, 143 L.Ed.2d 408 (1999)). In the context of a search incident to arrest, that determination must be made by weighing the governmental interests of officer safety and preservation of evidence against the invasion of privacy inherent in searching the belongings someone has on their person at the time of arrest. Id. When the belonging in question is a device like a cell phone, the balance between governmental and privacy interests shifts enormously:
Id. at 2484-85 (discussing United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973) and Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969)). The Court reasoned that "when privacy-related concerns are weighty enough[,] a search may require a warrant, notwithstanding the diminished expectations of privacy of the arrestee." Id. at 2488 (quoting Maryland v. King, ___ U.S. ___, 133 S.Ct. 1958, 1979, 186 L.Ed.2d 1 (2013)).
Of particular relevance to our inquiry, the Supreme Court discussed the particular qualities of electronic devices that must be considered. Cell phones, the Court noted, "are in fact minicomputers that also happen to have the capacity to be used as a telephone.... One of the most notable distinguishing features of modern cell phones is their immense storage capacity." Id. at 2489. That storage capacity
Id. Thus, the likelihood that an electronic device will contain 1) many kinds of data, 2) in vast amounts, and 3) corresponding to a long swath of time, convinced the Riley Court that officers must obtain a warrant before searching such a device incident to arrest. Id.
We reach the same conclusion regarding the private search doctrine in the case at bar. As with any Fourth Amendment inquiry, we must weigh the government's interest in conducting the search of Lichtenberger's property against his privacy interest in that property. That the item in question is an electronic device does not change the fundamentals of this inquiry. But under Riley, the nature of the electronic device greatly increases the potential privacy interests at stake, adding weight to one side of the scale while the other remains the same. Id. at 2488.
This shift manifests in Jacobsen's "virtual certainty" requirement. For the review of Lichtenberger's laptop to be permissible, Jacobsen instructs us that Officer Huston's search had to stay within the scope of Holmes' initial private search. 466 U.S. at 119, 104 S.Ct. 1652. To accomplish this, Officer Huston had to proceed with "virtual certainty" that the "inspection of the [laptop] and its contents would not tell [him] anything more than he already had been told [by Holmes.]" Id. That plainly was not the case. As the district court found, "there was absolutely no virtual certainty that the search of Lichtenberger's laptop would have" revealed only what Officer Huston had already been told. Lichtenberger, 19 F.Supp.3d at 759; see also id. ("[T]he search of a laptop is far more intrusive than the search of a container because the two objects are not alike.... [G]iven the amount of data a laptop can hold, there was absolutely no virtual certainty" as there was in Jacobsen.).
Considering the extent of information that can be stored on a laptop computer — a device with even greater capacity than the cell phones at issue in Riley — the "virtual certainty" threshold in Jacobsen requires more than was present here. When Office Huston arrived, he asked Holmes to show him what she had found. While the government emphasizes that she showed Officer Huston only a handful of photographs, Holmes admitted during testimony that she could not recall if these were among the same photographs she had seen earlier because there were hundreds of photographs in the folders she had accessed. And Officer Holmes himself admitted that he may have asked Holmes to open files other than those she had previously opened. As a result, not only was there no virtual certainty that Officer Huston's review was limited to the photographs from Holmes's earlier search, there was a very real possibility Officer Huston exceeded the scope of Holmes's search and that he could have discovered something
All the photographs Holmes showed Officer Huston contained images of child pornography, but there was no virtual certainty that would be the case. The same folders — labeled with numbers, not words — could have contained, for example, explicit photos of Lichtenberger himself: legal, unrelated to the crime alleged, and the most private sort of images. Other documents, such as bank statements or personal communications, could also have been discovered among the photographs. So, too, could internet search histories containing anything from Lichtenberger's medical history to his choice of restaurant. The reality of modern data storage is that the possibilities are expansive.
We are not alone in our approach to these modern considerations under the Fourth Amendment. Our sister circuit courts have placed a similar emphasis on virtual certainty in their application of Jacobsen to searches of contemporary electronic devices. In United States v. Runyan, the Fifth Circuit adopted a relatively broad approach when it partially excluded the fruits of a warrantless government search of computer disks alleged to contain child pornography. 275 F.3d 449, 464 (5th Cir.2001). In that case, the defendant's ex-wife turned over a number of disks to police, but she had only viewed the contents of some of them. Id. at 453. Analogizing the various disks to opened and unopened containers, the court found that "the police exceed the scope of a prior private search when they examine a closed container that was not opened by the private searchers unless the police are already substantially certain of what is inside that container based on the statements of the private searchers, their replication of the private search, and their expertise." Id. at 463 (emphasis added). Where the defendant's ex-wife had previously viewed files on a disk and confirmed they contained child pornography, therefore, the court upheld the police's after-occurring inspection. Id. at 464. However, where the ex-wife had not viewed a disk, the police had no "substantial certainty" regarding their contents, and the court found that those searches violated the Fourth Amendment. Id.
A decade later, the Seventh Circuit applied the same rationale to uphold police review of similar evidence. In Rann v. Atchison, a 15-year-old victim of child pornography reported the defendant to the police. 689 F.3d 832, 834 (7th Cir.2012). After the police interview, she went home and retrieved a memory card containing evidence to support her allegations. Id. The defendant's wife (and the victim's mother) later provided a computer zip drive with similarly incriminating evidence stored on it. Id. While the police reviewed both items without a warrant, the court held the after-occurring searches permissible under Jacobsen and Runyan:
Id. at 837-38 (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added).
A case with similar concerns regarding police review of pornographic images on a laptop was recently decided by the Ninth Circuit, as well. In United States v. Tosti, the court found that an after-occurring search was permissible under Jacobsen, noting that:
733 F.3d 816, 822 (9th Cir.2013). Unlike in the case at bar, the record in Tosti clearly established that Detective Shikore saw the exact same images as Suzuki had in a preceding private search. Here, we have a record that establishes the opposite: Holmes was not at all sure whether she opened the same files with Officer Huston as she had opened earlier that day. Other courts have conducted a similar analysis in parallel cases. See, e.g., United States v. Goodale, 738 F.3d 917, 921 (8th Cir.2013), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S.Ct. 2856, 189 L.Ed.2d 818 (2014); cf. United States v. Odoni, 782 F.3d 1226, 1238-39 (11th Cir.2015).
We find that Officer Huston's lack of "virtual certainty" when he reviewed the contents of Lichtenberger's laptop is dispositive in this instance. However, we
In light of the information available at the time the search was conducted, the strong privacy interests at stake, and the absence of a threat to government interests, we conclude that Officer Huston's warrantless review of Lichtenberger's laptop exceeded the scope of the private search Holmes had conducted earlier that day, and therefore violated Lichtenberger's Fourth Amendment rights to be free from an unreasonable search and seizure. The laptop evidence and evidence obtained pursuant to the warrant issued on the basis of its contents must be suppressed.
For the foregoing reasons, we