SC: Police officer’s accidently seeing child porn on def’s computer screen was plain view that led to SW

Defendant’s computer was being worked on by a computer technician in defendant’s home. A police officer came by on personal business to leave something. When in the house, he saw something scroll by on the screen, and he asked the computer tech to run it back. It showed child exploitation. He had the computer tech save the file to a disk and then he reported it to get a search warrant. The image qualified as plain view and copying it for preservation was reasonable. State v. Cardwell, 2019 S.C. LEXIS 5 (Jan. 23, 2019), aff’g 414 S.C. 416, 778 S.E.2d 483 (App. 2015).

Defendant knew about pen registers and traps before the trial started, and they essentially weren’t material. His later claim that they might have been material doesn’t aid him because he already knew. United States v. Ulbricht, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 2287 (2d Cir. Jan. 24, 2019).*

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