THE COUNSELOR’S CORNER:If roommate is a suspect, should you be as well?

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is often criticized for being too liberal. This U.S. Supreme Court often overturns its decisions, and there is often talk about dividing or in some fashion rearranging the court to make it a little less liberal.

But the court proved it is not always liberal this summer, with what I deem to be a poor decision in July.

The question here is if your roommate happens to be suspected of committing a crime and his computer then becomes the target of a search warrant, can the police who come in to execute the search warrant take your computer and read your e-mails?

Well, believe it or not, by a unanimous 3-0 vote, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that federal agents serving a search warrant could search the roommate’s computer and read her e-mails, etc.

This case pertains to Christopher Adjani who was suspected of committing the crime of conspiracy to commit extortion.

Adjani had previously been employed by Paycom Billing Services, which facilitates payments made over the Internet. It was alleged that Adjani had kept a copy of the database of the company after his employment with the company had terminated and he was threatening to sell it and all of the sensitive financial information in it to the highest bidder unless Paycom paid him $3 million.

At the time the warrant was served, Adjani’s roommate, Jana Reinhold, was not a suspect in this alleged crime.

While they were at the home, the FBI agents decided not only to seize Adjani’s computer, but to take Reinhold’s computer as well.

The search of Reinhold’s computer led to the discovery of three e-mails that clearly showed her to be a part of the alleged extortion.

When the complaint was filed, Adjani and Reinhold were charged with conspiracy to commit extortion.

This case moved through the federal court system and found itself in front of U.S. District Court Judge Terry Hatter.

Adjani and Reinhold filed a motion requesting the court to suppress the e-mails, (i.e. to rule that they could not be used as evidence) since the FBI agents had inappropriately and wrongfully seized Reinhold’s computer when they were there to get Adjani’s computer. Hatter agreed, ruling that the agents should have gotten what they came for and left Reinhold’s possessions alone.

This is where the Ninth Circuit comes in and in an unusually conservative opinion, the court overruled Hatter and defended the FBI agents right to commandeer and search Reinhold’s computer.

The court stated that this was because Reinhold was known to participate in some of the suspicious activities of Adjani.

Judge Raymond Fisher stated that computer searches posed “difficult questions for the 4th Amendment because computers can be repositories of innocent and deeply personal information, but also of evidence of crimes.”

OK, that’s true, but if the warrant gave the FBI agents permission to search that which belongs to Adjani, it is far from clear to me why the Circuit Court found Hatter to be wrong in his conclusion that they should stick to that which belongs to Adjani.

Why should they be able to search all of the computers at the Adjani residence? If they want Reinhold’s computer, they should have to get a warrant for it.

This is a decision that I clearly do not agree with. It will be interesting to see this issue when it inevitably makes its way before the California State Supreme Court and what those justices decide to do.