United States v. Camou

Border-patrol agents stopped Chad Daniel Camou (defendant) at an inspection checkpoint and found an undocumented immigrant lying on the floor behind Camou’s truck’s front seats. The agents handcuffed Camou, his girlfriend, Ashley Lundy, and their hidden passenger and brought all three truck occupants to the checkpoint’s security offices. The agents also seized Camou’s cell phone from the truck’s cab. As police interviewed Lundy, the phone rang several times, and Lundy informed police that the caller had arranged for Camou to transport undocumented immigrants. An agent searched the phone 80 minutes after Camou’s arrest, purportedly looking for evidence of smuggling activity. After checking Camou’s call log, the agent browsed Camou’s videos and photographs. The agent found 30 to 40 photographs depicting child pornography. On the same day of the arrest and cell-phone search, an assistant United States attorney informed border-patrol agents that the government would not pursue alien-smuggling charges against Camou. Nonetheless, border-patrol agents relayed the child-pornography information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which executed a search warrant and found hundreds of images of child pornography on Camou’s phone. Camou moved to suppress the child pornography, but the district court denied the motion. Camou entered a conditional guilty plea to possession of child pornography and then appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress.