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Jaime Aguirre, a 43-year-old Ohio medical imaging technician accused of taking hundreds of surreptitious nude and semi-nude photos of patients at Advanced Medical Imaging in Tiffin, Ohio, pleaded "no contest" to 15 child pornography charges in a Portage County courthouse. Additional child pornography and voyeurism charges were filed against Aguirre in Seneca County (where AMI is located) after a forensic examination of his home computer revealed more patient photos. Police also found hundreds of photos and video recordings of women made in various public locations near Aguirre's home. Bond for the Seneca County charges was set at $750,000.
The nude photographs initially came to light when Aguirre was pulled over for a traffic violation while driving home from a Pittsburgh Steelers game in October. Police found 2 oz. of marijuana in Aguirre's possession, and after arresting him, conducted a thorough search of his vehicle. Among the items found were a small wireless camera and various digital memory chips; when the police examined the chips, they discovered the apparent child pornography images.
Investigators say that as many as 200 hundred women and girls photographed by Aguirre remain unidentified. According to the police, the forensic examination of his home computer also uncovered more than 150,000 sexually-explicit images. Understandably, the news that a medical imaging technician was secretly photographing patients in various stages of undress and shooting secret videos of women in public places has deeply upset residents in the northern Ohio towns where Aguirre lived and worked.
Aguirre's entry of a "no contest" plea to the Portage County charges opens up the possibility that he could appeal the trial court's refusal to exclude the evidence seized by the police during the warrantless search of Aguirre's car and the memory chips. Aguirre's attorney argued that the police did not have probable cause to search the chips, and that the evidence should be suppressed. The court denied Aguirre's motion.
Aguirre may have a legitimate argument that the product of the warrantless search of his SIM chips should be suppressed. Last December, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that under the Fourth Amendment, police are required to obtain a search warrant before examining the data contained in a cell phone, unless the search is necessary to protect the safety of police officers or other exigent circumstances are present. State v. Smith, Slip Opinion No. 2009-Ohio-6426 (Ohio December 15, 2009).
The circumstances of the Smith case are virtually identical to those of Aguirre. Smith was stopped by police and arrested on drug-related charges following a sting operation. During the arrest, police discovered a cell phone on his person. After putting Smith in a cruiser, the police searched his car and found bags containing crack cocaine. They then opened his cell phone and reviewed the contents without a warrant, and without obtaining Smith's consent.
By a 4-3 vote, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected prosecution arguments that under U.S. Supreme Court law, police are entitled to search a "closed container" found in a search pursuant to an arrest. The "closed container" doctrine, the Ohio court said, is intended to cover objects that can contain other phyiscal objects that may potentially be harmful to the police. It was not intended to cover electronic devices.
As the Court put it, "Even the more basic models of modern cell phones are capable of storing a wealth of digitized information wholly unlike any physical object found within a closed container. We thus hold that a cell phone is not a closed container for purposes of a Fourth Amendment analysis."
It will be interesting to see whether Aguirre and his attorney decide to file an appeal in this case. Regardless of whether or not they decide to do so, it seems likely that the issue of whether electronic devices like cell phones, SIM chips, and the like can be stuffed into the "closed container" doctrine will eventually land on the U.S. Supreme Court's desk. It will be an opportunity, hopefully accepted, for the Court to acknowledge the vast intrusions that can occur from warrantless searches of our electronic devices.
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