Court of Appeals Reverses the Grant of Defendant’s Motion to Suppress Evidence

In State v. Dole, the Georgia Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and held that the search of the defendant’s residence on his parents’ property was not outside the permissible scope of the search warrant.

Background

A GBI agent applied for a search warrant for the defendant’s parents’ property after receiving a cyber tip that the defendant was in possession of child pornography.

The address listed on the search warrant belonged to the defendant’s parents and the warrant authorized a search of “the entire curtilage of the residence as well as any vehicles and exterior buildings that are located on the property.”

The warrant authorized the officers to seize electronic devices, computers, cell phones, and other digital media that might contain evidence of the possession of child pornography.

When the officers were executing the search warrant, the defendant’s parents told one of the GBI agents that the defendant lived in a separate building behind their house that was within the boundary of the parents’ parcel of land.

The officers searched that other building and seized several computers and cell phones belonging to the defendant. The defendant was arrested and later indicted on multiple counts of sexual exploitation of children.

Defendant’s Motion to Suppress

The defendant filed a motion to suppress this evidence, arguing that the search of his residence was outside the permissible scope of the search warrant.

At the hearing on the motion, the defendant’s residence was described by his father as a “cabin.” He stated that the cabin had no separate utilities and that it was powered by lines connected to the parents’ house. He testified that the cabin did not have a separate address.

The trial court granted the motion to suppress, finding that the search of the cabin was outside the scope of the search warrant. The State appealed.

Court of Appeals’ Reversal

The appeals court held that the search warrant described the places to be searched with sufficient particularity, identifying the defendant’s parents’ residence as well as “the entire curtilage.” The Court noted that the warrant specifically included any “exterior buildings” and that the defendant’s cabin would be considered one of them.

The defendant argued that once the officers learned that the cabin was a “separate residence,” they were required to obtain a new search warrant for it. In support of this argument, the defendant cited to prior cases dealing with multi-unit residences, like apartment buildings, hotels, and boarding houses.

However, the Court held that this case didn’t involve a multi-unit building but, rather, an exterior building lying within the curtilage of the property belonging to a single-family residence identified in the search warrant. Therefore, the Court followed the line of cases that have approved of searches of such exterior buildings when the warrant specifically authorizes a search of the entire curtilage of the property (as it did here).

As a result, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s ruling suppressing the evidence and remanded the case back to the trial court.