Private search of videotape led to police viewing of the tape which did not violate the Fourth Amendment

A private search of a videotape that showed the defendant engaged in sexual conduct with two young girls led to the police being given the videotape, and they could view it without a warrant. State v. Robinson, 187 N.C. App. 795, 653 S.E.2d 889 (December 18, 2007):

While there appears to be no settled case law in North Carolina directly on point regarding the scope of a search involving the viewing of a videotape, we agree with the positions of the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits of the United States Court of Appeals, that “the police do not exceed the scope of a prior private search when they examine the same materials that were examined by the private searchers, but they examine these materials more thoroughly than did the private parties.” United States v. Runyan, 275 F.3d 449, 464 (5th Cir. 2001) (finding no constitutional violation where the police viewed more images stored on a computer disc than did the private searcher); United States v. Simpson, 904 F.2d 607, 610 (11th Cir. 1990) (holding the search of a box and viewing of videotapes by federal law enforcement agents “did not exceed the scope of the prior private searches for Fourth Amendment purposes simply because they took more time and were more thorough than the Federal Express agents”). Here, Mr. Young’s viewing of the videotape did not violate the Fourth Amendment because he was a private party not acting under the authority of the State. Mr. Young’s viewing of the videotape effectively frustrated defendant’s expectation of privacy as to the contents of the videotape, and thus the subsequent viewing of the videotape by Detective Thompson did not violate defendant’s rights under the Fourth Amendment. While Mr. Young stated that he had only viewed “portions” of the videotape, his viewing “opened the container” of the videotape and the subsequent viewing of the entire videotape was not outside the scope of Mr. Young’s initial “search.” Runyan, 275 F.3d at 465.

Defendant was a passenger with a person officers knew there was a warrant for, so they stopped the car. After the driver was arrested, the officers got the defendant out of the car and questioned him because they knew he had priors for drugs. He consented to a search of his apartment, and that led to finding identity theft paraphernalia. After his suppression hearing [apparently Brendlin was decided] on appeal, the state conceded he had standing because of his own stop and questioning after the purpose of the stop was complete with the arrest of the driver on old warrants. State v. Parra, 941 A.2d 799 (R.I. 2007).*