Upon arrival, the inspector checked the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, electronic database and found a computer-generated alert, based upon Howard Cotterman's prior conviction for child sex crimes in 1992.

The alert advised the inspector to be on the lookout for child pornography and due to the warning, the Cottermans were sent to a secondary inspection area.

However, on April 8, Agent Owens' forensic examination turned up approximately 75 images of child pornography on Howard Cotterman's computer.

[3] In the majority opinion, Judge Tallman agreed with the Government that border search doctrine allowed property to be transported to a secondary site for examination.

However, he also stated that the Government cannot seize property and hold it for "weeks, months, years on a whim" - effectively allowing the courts to continue to determine whether searches and seizures are reasonable on a case-to-case basis.

[6][8][10][11] I would hold that officers must have some level of particularized suspicion in order to conduct a seizure and search like the one at issue here, because (1) seizing one's personal property deprives the individual of his valid possessory interest in his property, and (2) authorizing a generalized computer forensic search (untethered to any particularized suspicion) permits the Government to engage in the type of generalized fishing expeditions that the Fourth Amendment is designed to prevent.Reversing the reasoning of the panel, the Ninth Circuit held that forensic examination of a computer seized at the border requires reasonable suspicion.

[12][13] Did the Ninth Circuit violate the Constitution, create circuit splits, contravene this Court's decisions, and subvert the appellate process by replacing the question presented by the parties with an issue that the prosecution deliberately abandoned, and by making a factual finding (i.e. that reasonable suspicion existed) for the first time on appeal that disregarded the factual findings of the district court and agents at the scene, and then by holding that a citizen's personal belongings may be seized at the border with no suspicion of wrongdoing?On January 13, 2014, the Court denied the petition for Certiorari.

In March 2014, the Court denied a Petition for Rehearing filed in February 2014, letting the Ninth Circuit's decision stand, along with the reasonable suspicion standard it created.

[13] On September 29, 2014, Cotterman was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins to serve 35 years in prison for child exploitation offenses.

An investigation revealed that Cotterman sexually abused a young girl multiple times over a two-year period, beginning when she was seven years old.