United States v. Matthew Langenberg, No. 22-1071 (8th Cir. 2022)
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Defendant worked as a salesman at a retail flooring store. The company gave Defendant a cell phone, which he was allowed to take home and use as a personal phone. After a co-worker alleged in 2020 that Defendant had used the phone to record her, the company’s co-owner asked Defendant for the phone and its passcode. After Defendant unlocked the phone and provided the passcode, the co-owner discovered images that he believed were child pornography. He thereafter gave the phone and passcode to law enforcement officers,
Defendant moved to suppress the evidence of child pornography that the officers had discovered on the phone. Following the district court’s denial of the motion, Defendant pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography and was sentenced to 60 months imprisonment.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment. The court held that because it found that the co-owner had apparent authority to consent to the search, the court need not reach Defendant’s argument that the warrantless search constituted an unlawful trespass. The co-owners apparent authority also defeats Defendant’s argument that the later search of his residence should be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree.
Court Description: [Wollman, Author, with Colloton and Stras, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. The company's co-owner had apparent authority to consent to a police search of defendant's company-provided cell phone; he had possession of the phone, had access through a passcode to the phone's content, claimed ownership of the phone, and told the officers he had searched the phone and found child pornography; on these facts, the officers reasonably believed he had authority to consent to the search.
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