Images Found by Repairman May Be Used Against Owner

A person who had Circuit City install a new DVD drive on his computer waived any right to privacy when the store found child pornography during a test of the new system, a Pennsylvania appellate court found.

The ruling reversed the trial court’s suppression of the results of a search of Kenneth Sodomsky’s computer that found numerous videos containing child pornography. The trial court found that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy when he left his computer with Circuit City to install a new DVD.

The appellate court found that by Sodomsky leaving his computer with Circuit City, he waived any expectation that the files would not be discovered during the installation of the new DVD. “Appellee was aware of the child pornography and could have elected to leave the store with the computer rather than risk discovery of the pornographic files,” the court wrote.

Sodomsky left his desktop computer with Circuit City so that a new DVD could be installed. It was Circuit City’s practice that after the DVD was installed, store personnel would test the device by searching the computer for videos or movies.

When the search program was initiated, it revealed a series of vidoes that “appeared pornographic in nature due to their titles, which included masculine first names, ages of either thirteen or fourteen and sex acts,” the appellate court wrote. When the first title was clicked, an image of a lower torso of an unclothed male was revealed. Store personnel called the police who took the computer and obtained a warrant to search the other files.

“In the present case, police were authorized to be on the store premises by those Circuit City employees who had authority to grant police access to the repair shop. Therefore, there was no Fourth Amendment violation by police when they viewed the video file, which was observed from a lawful vantage point.”

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Kenneth F. Sodomsky, Superior Court of Penn. No. 1953 MD 2005, issued August 9, 2007.