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Name: United States v. Battershell
Case #: 05-30397
Court: US Court of Appeals
District 9 Cir
Opinion Date: 08/10/2006
Summary

The court properly denied the defendant’s motion to suppress where the warrant to search his computer was supported by probable cause. The defendant’s girlfriend and her sister contacted police to report finding child pornography on the defendant’s computer, and the officer who responded to the call prepared a report which was eventually submitted in support of a search warrant. The report described two photos seen by the officer on the computer, one showing a young female in the nude, and one showing a young female engaged in sexual intercourse with an adult male. The Ninth Circuit found that the evidence submitted was sufficient to establish probable cause. Although the description of the first photograph was not sufficient by itself to establish probable cause that the photo “lasciviously exhibited the genitals or pubic area” of the subject, as required by relevant child pornography laws, the description of the second photograph, combined with the statements of the two women that they had seen “pictures that they believed were kids having sex,” was sufficient to establish probable cause.