MI- Police: Porn pics seized not of local kids

I'm wondering if there is a 4th Amendment violation here. Generally, if one person in a household refuses to give consent to a search (as he did) then later the other household members cannot override that refusal, as was done here. This evidence may very well get thrown out.

Further, did they find child porn? If so, why make mention of the family photos, and infer others may see them too. What are they eluding too?

8-12-2008 Michigan:

Thousands of pictures and videos of child pornography seized from an Emmett Township man last week are not of local children, police said Monday.

Lt. Tony Geigle and Officer Seth Graves of the Emmett Township Department of Public Safety said their investigation shows the pictures were downloaded from the Internet and not produced locally.

"But what I have seen on this computer is some of the very worst I have ever seen," Graves said. "It involves very young children. But so far it is nothing he produced."

Erin W. Merritt, 33, was arraigned Thursday on six charges of possession of child pornography and faces up to four years in prison if he is convicted. He is being held on $250,000 bond and a preliminary examination is scheduled for Aug. 20 in Calhoun County District Court.

Emmett Township police began their investigation months ago, Geigle said, after an anonymous tip was sent to the department through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.

Geigle said the tip encouraged officers to check Merritt because he was believed to have child pornography and had several young children in his Emmett Township home.

But police didn't have enough evidence for a search warrant and when they went to the home, Merritt refused them access to his computer, Geigle said, and the investigation stalled.

In July, Geigle and Graves, assigned to a newly formed CyberCrimes and Computer Forensics Unit at the department, attended an FBI seminar on investigating child pornography and learned of new software that can be used to determine quickly if images are stored on a computer.

A complete forensic investigation of a computer can be time consuming, Graves said, but the software allows an officer to check a computer quickly and without altering any of the data.

Graves hadn't forgotten about the investigation at the Merritt home and told Geigle on the trip back that the software might help them.

That was a Wednesday, Graves said, and on Thursday he went to the home and convinced another person who lives in the house and had access to the computer to allow him to search.

Graves said he quickly found images on the computer and obtained a search warrant to seize the machine and begin a through search, which is continuing this week.

Some of the pornography was obtained by file sharing, called peer-to-peer networking, and other pictures were captured from personal blogs.

Graves said search engines capable of finding pictures of children on those blogs are used by people looking for specific types of images.

Many of the pictures found on Merritt's computer are family photos of children posted on personal Web sites.

"It may be an innocent thing to put up pictures for family, but they may not be the only ones seeing them," Graves said.

Geigle said the investigation is continuing to determine if Merritt had sexual contact with any children. ..News Source.. by Trace Christenson