U.S. v. Arnold

Citation: United States v. Arnold, 454 F.Supp.2d 999 (C.D. Cal. 2006).

== Factual Background =

The defendant was returning from the Philippines when a custom agent chose him for secondary questioning after he had gone through the customs checkpoint. The customs agent ordered the defendant to “turn on the computer so she could see if it was functioning.” While the defendant’s luggage was being inspected, another customs agent searched the laptop’s contents and found pictures of nude adult women. The defendant was then detained for several hours while special agents from ICE conducted a more extensive search of the laptop and discovered material they believed to be child pornography.

Trial Court Decision
The court first noted that non-routine searches are intrusions that implicate dignity and privacy interests. The court concluded that since “opening and viewing confidential computer files implicate dignity and privacy interests,” the search was non-routine and could be conducted only if justified by reasonable suspicions. After examining the circumstances surrounding the search, the court found that the customs agent had no justification for turning on the laptop, and thus granted the defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence procured from the laptop.

Though Arnold is the first case to formally characterize a laptop border search as non-routine, it did so only after finding a complete absence of cause to support the search. Therefore, Arnold is distinguishable from U.S. v. Romm because the challenge to the laptop search in Romm was not properly raised. Given the facts in Arnold, there was nothing found during the search of the defendant’s luggage to raise the requisite amount of reasonable suspicion to justify searching the defendant’s laptop.