Warrant to Search Safe at Defendant's Workplace Upheld

U.S. v. Soderstrand, 2005 WL 1406183 (6/16/05) - The warrant to search a safe at the professor defendant's workplace was supported by probable cause where a clerical employee, to satisfy her curiosity, opened the safe and discovered pictures of naked children and told the police. That the warrant affidavit didn't state the minors in the photos were engaged in sexually explicit conduct---the requirement of the child porn statute---didn't matter. It was enough that child porn could reasonably be expected to be found in the safe. The state university clerical employee was not a state actor because she acted on her own outside her duties. Even if the affidavit was insufficient, the search is saved by the officers' good faith. They did everything they were supposed to do: first seeking a warrant, rather than searching. The constitutional plain error under Booker did not warrant reversal because the district court exercised its discretion to sentence near the top of the guideline range.