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I've seen more than one lawyer who seems to think that the exception is implicit, which would mean the search is not invalid on its face.
by gthank 16y ago
I've seen more than one lawyer who seems to think that the exception is implicit, which would mean the search is not invalid on its face.
- gte910h 16y agoAny of them posting online about that? I can't see that holding up once challenged, especially if they find evidence of a crime by someone else on that computer for an unrelated matter.
- gthank 16y agoOrin Kerr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orin_Kerr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orin_Kerr) has posted about this. He doesn't take a firm position, but notes that the California law doesn't explicitly carve out such an exception, but the close federal parallel does mostly allow such warrants. He also notes that no court has ruled on this point in CA. He also explains the context around the original passage of the law: "This law was passed in response to Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment allowed the government to obtain a warrant to search a news office for evidence of crime that the news source was gathering in the course of reporting the news." Source: http://volokh.com/2010/04/27/thoughts-on-the-legality-of-the-gizmodo-warrant/ http://volokh.com/2010/04/27/thoughts-on-the-legality-of-the... This part is my own interpretation, but I think it's reasonable: given the lack of direct precedent, the CA court that considers this matter will probably consider the legislative intent behind the law (Gizmodo is out of luck) and look to how similar laws have been interpreted (again, Gizmodo is out of luck).