Defendant revoked consent to computer search, but by then the officers had seen enough to get a search warrant, so inevitable discovery supported admission of the evidence

Defendant revoked his consent to the search and seizure of his computer, and he merely acquiesced in officers taking his computer anyway. However, the trial judge did not err in denying the motion to suppress because the child porn on his computer would have been inevitably found by a search warrant. United States v. Wallace, 2008 CAAF LEXIS 226 (C.A. A.F. February 13, 2008):

In this case, the images of child pornography on Appellant’s computer hard drive would similarly have inevitably been discovered. As the military judge correctly concluded, had Appellant not ultimately consented to the seizure of the computer, the AFOSI investigators would have sought and obtained a search authorization based on probable cause. After all, during his interrogation, Appellant admitted to a sexual relationship with a young girl with whom he communicated mostly via e-mail and instant messenger. This alone encouraged investigators to focus on the computer as a source of evidence and created sufficient probable cause to allow AFOSI to obtain an authorization to search for, and seize e-mails and messages between Appellant and TND. Though the authorization would have been limited to e-mails and messages, one of the AFOSI investigators testified that the forensic software employed would have skimmed the computer’s hard drive, recovering all saved data. As the military judge concluded, investigators would have had to sift through all the captured data to find relevant e-mail traffic. As such, the files containing child pornography would have been inevitably discovered through this valid search. It should also be noted that although we have ultimately concluded that the initial consent to seize had been terminated as a matter of law, the fact that the law enforcement officers proceeded on the belief that they had consent underscores that this is not a case involving a deliberate intent to evade the warrant requirement.