Last week, the Tenth Circuit found no errors in the district court’s decision to deny all of Rebecca’s Christie’s Fourth Amendment challenge to the search of her computer.

How nurturing.

Christie’s appeal involves several questions, and the government’s cross-appeal as well. The primary question addressed was whether or not the search of her computer, after it had been seized, was in violation of her Fourth Amendment rights, and challenged the warrants leading to those searches.

There were two warrants that the government had obtained for the searches — the first one of which came some five months after the authorities had seized Christie’s computer. Christie’s first argument was that this was unreasonably delayed and thus should have precluded that warrant from being issued.

While the Tenth Circuit acknowledged that a delay could be cause for unreasonableness, they found that this didn’t apply here. Not only did the item seized have major evidentiary value, but Mr. Wulf, Christie’s husband, consented to the seizure. He was at least a co-owner of the computer, and on top of this, Christie had raised no objection at the time or in the following months during its absence. Thus, there was both consent and no complaints after the fact.

Christie’s other attack was regarding the validity of the second warrant, which was issued with the purpose of conducting a more thorough search of the computer. She claimed that this did not contain enough particularity as required under the Fourth Amendment. The court, in turn, citing United States v. Brooks, found that the narrowed direction, for the purposes of searching for any records and information relating to the neglect, abuse, and murder of her daughter from June 19th, 2002 (the child’s birth date) to May 4, 2006 (the date the computer was seized) was certainly particular enough.

Bottom line: When you’ve neglected your child to the point of killing them, it’s best not to complain about protecting the computer that distracted you to the point of ending up at this tragic point.

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