D.Minn.: Def made a proper showing for a Rule 17(c) subpoena for discovery for his unique 4A claim

Defendant has made a prima facie case to get a Rule 17(c) subpoena for evidence for his suppression hearing. His suppression theory is unique, but not frivolous, so the court is going to grant leeway to permit discovery. United States v. Shipton, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33014 (D. Minn. Mar. 1, 2019):

On February 27, 2019, the Court held a hearing on Mr. Shipton’s requests for additional time and for a subpoena and heard arguments from both counsel about the legal and practical issues raised by those requests. Following extensive discussion with the Court, Mr. Shipton clarified that his Motion to Suppress alleges three different ways in which law enforcement violated his Fourth Amendment rights. First, Mr. Shipton argues that law enforcement violated his Fourth Amendment rights when it used a modified peer-to-peer software program known as Round-Up Emule to identify a hash value for suspected child pornography associated with his IP address. Second, Mr. Shipton argues that CRC, a putative government actor in this context, violated his Fourth Amendment rights by using significant computing power to collect hash values for many other files associated with his IP address containing known or suspected child pornography. And third, he argues that CRC violated his Fourth Amendment rights by storing information that they had gathered regarding his computer files for an indeterminate period. Mr. Shipton argues that much of the evidence against him is fruit of these unlawful violations of his reasonable expectation of privacy.