PA: Flash drive could have been searched under original warrant; second warrant unnecessary; email warrant overbroad, but second warrant cured

This is the case against Senator Orie in Pennsylvania for election crimes and forgery and tampering with evidence. Multiple search warrants were issued, and computers, hard drives, flash drives, and email were seized. A flash drive was seized under a warrant and searched under another more detailed warrant. The process was valid, but it probably wasn’t necessary to use the second warrant. The first email warrant was overbroad, but a master had the material, and a second more narrow warrant was issued to look, and this was proper. Commonwealth v. Orie, 2014 PA Super 44, 2014 Pa. Super. LEXIS 116 n.42 (March 6, 2014):

In so ruling, we do not imply that two warrants are required to seize and search the contents of computer hard drives, flash drives and other digital storage devices, or that the Commonwealth’s decision in this case to obtain two warrants is the preferred approach with respect to such searches and seizures. To the contrary, the necessary specificity regarding the items to be seized and the files to be searched should all be set forth in an initial warrant (such that a second warrant is unnecessary). In other words, in the absence of exigent circumstances, the seizure and search of digital storage devices should be conducted in accordance with the limitations set forth in a single warrant, with those limitations based upon the extent of probable cause established in the accompanying affidavit.

. . .

Likewise, we find the January 8, 2010 warrant for Orie’s AOL account Janeorie@aol.com, seeking, inter alia, “all stored communications and other files … between August 1, 2009 and the present, including all documents, images, recordings spreadsheets or any other data stored in digital format,” was overbroad. The affidavit attached to the January 8, 2010 search warrant provided probable cause that evidence of criminal activity could be found therein, and was limited to the period from August 2009 to January 10, 2010, but did not justify the search of all communications for that period. However, as with the warrants for the USB flash drive, law enforcement did not conduct a search pursuant to the January 8, 2010 warrant, but rather only seized the entirety of the evidence for a later search of the contents. The search of the seized information in the AOL account was conducted pursuant to the second, more detailed, March 10, 2010 warrant that provided the particularity the earlier warrant lacked. Given these unique facts, we similarly find no violation of Orie’s constitutional rights.43 We again note that the evidence obtained through the search conducted pursuant to the second warrant was reviewed by the Special Master before any information was turned over to the prosecutors for review.