United States v. Christy, No. 12-2127 (10th Cir. 2014)
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Defendant-Appellant Edward Christy appealed a district court order granting in part the government's motion to reconsider and denying his motion to suppress on the basis of the inevitable discovery doctrine. Christy met K.Y. on AgeMatch.com, a dating website, and the two exchanged sexually explicit emails and photographs. Christy arranged to pick K.Y. up from her home in Westminster, California, and bring her to his home in Albuquerque, which he did. K.Y.'s parents later reported her missing. FBI Task Force Officers Carvo and Fletes investigated K.Y.'s disappearance. Using her telephone records, they found that K.Y. received three calls from Christy around the time of her disappearance and obtained Christy's address and other information from his cellular provider. Christy was indicted by a federal grand jury, charged with one count of transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and three counts of possession of matter containing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He moved to suppress all evidence obtained as a result of the warrantless search of his house, including his statements to the detective and all evidence obtained pursuant to the search warrants. The district court found that the deputies violated the Fourth Amendment when they entered Christy's house without a warrant, and granted the motion to suppress. The government moved for reconsideration, which the court granted to consider (inter alia) whether the illegally seized evidence was nonetheless admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine. The court determined that, absent the illegal search, Officer Carvo would have legally obtained a warrant and discovered the evidence, thus, the court denied Christy's motion to suppress. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting the motion to reconsider and correctly applied the inevitable discovery doctrine.
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