In the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

AUGUST TERM 2023

No. 23-6181-cr

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee,

v.

RYAN M. MAHER, Defendant-Appellant, __________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York __________

ARGUED: MAY 15, 2024 DECIDED: OCTOBER 30, 2024 ________________ Before: RAGGI, CHIN, and PÉREZ, Circuit Judges. ________________ Defendant Ryan M. Maher appeals his conviction in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Suddaby, J.) on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. Maher argues that the district court erred in relying on the “private search” doctrine to deny his motion to suppress evidence that was obtained by, or that is the fruit of, a warrantless visual police search of a digital file that Maher uploaded to his Google email account. We agree. Without itself ever visually examining the contents of Maher’s uploaded file, Google reported that it contained child pornography because the hash value for the image contained therein matched the hash value that Google had assigned an image previously located in another file, which image a Google employee or contractor had visually examined and identified as child pornography. In these circumstances, neither the private search doctrine relied on by the district court nor the Google Terms of Service agreement cited by the government supports the challenged warrantless search. That, however, does not mean that Maher is entitled to relief from conviction. As the district court correctly ruled in the alternative, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule supports denial of Maher’s suppression motion because, at the time authorities opened his uploaded file, they had a good faith basis to believe that no warrant was required.

AFFIRMED.

_________________

MELISSA A. TUOHEY, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Syracuse, NY, for Defendant-Appellant.

MICHAEL D. GADARIAN, Assistant United States Attorney, for Carla B. Freedman, United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, Syracuse, NY, for Appellee.

_________________

2 REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judge:

Defendant Ryan M. Maher stands convicted following a guilty plea in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Glenn T. Suddaby, Judge) of both receiving and possessing approximately 4,000 images and five videos depicting child pornography. See 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2)(A), (a)(5)(B), (b)(1)-(2). Sentenced to a total 294 months’ incarceration and life supervised release, Maher now appeals from his February 9, 2023 judgment of conviction, arguing that the district court erred in relying on the “private search” doctrine to deny his motion to suppress evidence that was obtained by, or that is the fruit of, a warrantless visual police search of a digital file that Maher uploaded to an email account that he maintained with Google (the “Maher file”). See Decision and Order, United States v. Maher, No. 21 Cr. 275 (N.D.N.Y Aug. 22, 2022), ECF N