Morales v. State
Morales v. State
| Case Date: | 06/20/2019 |
| Citation: | 2019 WL 2528912 |
| Court Type: | District Court of Appeal |
| Court: | Fla. 1st DCA |
| Judge: | Judge: Harvey L. Jay III |
| Rule(s): | 4th Amendment |
| Issues: | Defendant appealed his conviction for possession of child pornography, alleging that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement obtained the photos without a warrant when the chatroom hosting service matched the hash values of the photos to known values of child pornography, and the lower court had committed reversable error when denying his motion to suppress. |
| Resolution: | The Court affirmed the trial court’s denial. The evidence was uncovered by a private actor who had done private searches in the past by comparing the hash value of uploaded files to known hash values of child pornography. Since the Fourth Amendment does not apply to private actors, the motion was denied. The Court also noted that the Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the chatroom since he provided no evidence that he had taken any affirmative steps to secure access to the files or control of the chatroom. |
| Relevant Documents: | Plaintiff’ Motion to Supress Evidence (Doc. 35) |
| E-Discovery Issues: | Admissibility, Motion to Dismiss |
| E-discovery Tags: | Forensic Analysis/Examination, Hash Value, Privacy, Sources of ESI |
| E-discovery subjects: | Computer, Electronically stored information, Photographs |