Law360 Highlights Day Pitney's Second Circuit Win Vacating Tax Conviction In Data Seizure Case

Day Pitney white-collar defense attorneys Stanley A. Twardy Jr., Daniel E. Wenner and John W. Cerreta successfully overturned a tax conviction at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals after persuading a three-judge panel that the government violated an accountant's constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures by mirror-imaging the accountant's hard drives during a search for records of his clients, holding the mirror images for nearly three years, and then searching it for his personal records. In a June 17 article, Law360 reports that the appeals court held that the Fourth Amendment doesn't allow law enforcement to seize and indefinitely retain every file on a computer when they only have a search warrant for particular data on the computer and vacated the conviction on that basis. "We're really pleased that the court affirmed that while technology may change and advance, the rights afforded individuals under the Constitution and specifically under the Fourth Amendment remain inviolate," Mr. Twardy told Law360.