Stanley

Carlton F. Gunn, Federal Public Defender's Office, Los Angeles, CA, for the defendant-appellant.

Yvonne L. Garcia, United States Attorney's Office, Los Angeles, CA, for the plaintiff-appellee.

Before: ROBERT R. BEEZER, STEPHEN S. TROTT, and PAMELA ANN RYMER, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge TROTT; Dissent by Judge BEEZER.

TROTT, Circuit Judge:

Kevin Stanley conditionally pleaded guilty pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2) to one count of possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B). As part of his plea, he reserved the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress the offending material located during a search of his computer, a search conducted by federal agents led by Agent Michael Prado pursuant to the alleged consent of his one-time friend and now fiancee, Tiana Stockbridge. We have jurisdiction over this timely appeal in accord with 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

The computer on which Stanley kept his collection of child pornography had a complicated history of ownership, custody, and control. During the time Stanley and his girlfriend Tiana Stockbridge lived together before he was imprisoned in 2004 for child…

Opinion by Judge TROTT; Dissent by Judge BEEZER.

OPINION

Kevin Stanley conditionally pleaded guilty pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2) to one count of possession of child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B). As part of his plea, he reserved the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress the offending material located during a search of his computer, a search conducted by federal agents led by Agent Michael Prado pursuant to the alleged consent of his onetime friend and now fiancee, Tiana Stock-bridge. We have jurisdiction over this timely appeal in accord with 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

*948 I

The Computer’s History

The computer on which Stanley kept his collection of child pornography had a complicated history of ownership, custody, and control. During the time Stanley and his girlfriend Tiana Stockbridge lived together before he was imprisoned in 2004 for child molestation, Stockbridge and Stanley jointly owned and used the computer. Each had his and her own directories and folders on the computer which were tied to individual user names, “Kevin” for Stanley and “Tiana” for Stockbridge. Stanley had his material…

dissenting:

The court provides two separate rationales for affirming the district court’s denial of Stanley’s motion to suppress: (1) the district court properly concluded that *953 Stanley’s ex-girlfriend at the time, Tiana Stockbridge (“Stockbridge”), had common authority to consent to the search, or apparent authority to do so; and (2) the district court properly concluded that Stanley had no expectation of privacy in the computer’s contents. I respectfully disagree.

In this case, law enforcement agents relied on an invalid warrant to search a criminal defendant’s computer without his consent. The government’s reliance on the defendant’s ex-girlfriend’s consent is terribly flawed and cannot justify an otherwise invalid search under the Fourth Amendment. As I explain below, the district court’s factual findings were clearly erroneous.

Accordingly, I would reverse the district court’s decision not to suppress this evidence.

I

Consent

The “cardinal principle” in Fourth Amendment search and seizure jurisprudence is that “ 'searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.’ ”…