In a child pornography investigation, the government had information that specific CP files were downloaded from a \u201chost computer\u201d with a specific IP address. The government was able to link defendant to the host computer, and obtained a search warrant for it. While there were three pages of boilerplate about how P2P worked that could be disregarded, the meat of the affidavit clearly showed probable cause as to defendant\u2019s computer. United States v. Gozola, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106000 (D. Neb. July 10, 2012), adopted 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103925 (D. Minn. July 26, 2012):<\/p>\n
Further, boilerplate language concerning previous investigations serves no purpose toward establishing probable cause and must be disregarded. Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 90, 100 S. Ct. 338, 62 L. Ed. 2d 238 (1979) (search must be supported by probable cause particularized to defendant); see also United States v. Weber, 923 F.2d 1338, 1345-46 (9th Cir. 1991) (boilerplate statements “may have added fat to the affidavit, but certainly no muscle”).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Boilerplate will always be there because the affiant will always justifiably fear not giving enough for the search warrant. How many affidavits for search warrants have you read where the PC was in one or two sentences? The boilerplate is just prelude, but ultimately necessary to show the context. It can lead to cut and paste errors, but they will almost always be disregarded unless prejudice shown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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