United States v. Gallegos-Espinal, No. 19-20427 (5th Cir. 2020)
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The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of defendant's motion to suppress evidence of child pornography found on his phone. In this case, DHS suspected defendant of participating in his mother's alien-smuggling conspiracy and convinced defendant to voluntarily consent to the search of his iPhone. Rather than discovering evidence to support the conspiracy, federal agents instead discovered evidence of the unrelated crime of possession of child pornography. The district court suppressed three incriminating videos that the government discovered and ruled that defendant's written consent to a "complete search" of the iPhone could not support a review of extracted data three days after the phone was returned.
The court held, however, that defendant signed a consent form that, in its broad terms, encompasses the search and seizure conducted. Furthermore, defendant failed affirmatively to limit the scope of his broad consent. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's suppression of the evidence and remanded for further proceedings.
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