Actually, no judge has ruled on the search, so the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine is inapplicable.
Exactly. At this point, the search is totally valid. No one has ruled otherwise. Withdrawing the warrant could just be part of the process in returning Chen's physical materials.
I can see why Chen was so antsy. His computer probably also had emails etc from someone(s) at Apple that was feeding him info against NDA etc. That person would lose his/her job. So Chen was trying to protect a source, just not the one for the iphone 4 prototype. The move of having a 3rd party be the one to look inside the computer was a good one. Because then there's no way anyone would have something that Apple would have to be given if there was a civil suit. And nothing that might come out in the criminal one.
It's possible that they withdrew the warrant because they have Hogan's stuff. He could have kept all the emails he sent and received and they feel that the headers etc, along with captures of the various articles is enough proof so the copies on Chen's computer don't really matter.
as it minimizes the chances of a judge ruling any of the evidence inadmissible due to the shield law.
Only an idiot would apply shield law to this case because it's not about a source at all. Chen openly admitted in a public forum that he bought the phone etc.
All this could do in regards to shield laws is cut off Gawker from trying to make the appeal and wasting anyone's time with it.
Shame actually, as I was hoping to see blogger protection under press protection theories litigated and appealed. While Giz was certainly sleazy with how they approached that story, I hope the courts extend press protections to certain portions of the "blogging" community.
Sure, why not. Actually let any blogger posting 'news' have that protection.
Trouble is that this is NOT that kind of case. this is a criminal act case.
Now had Chen bought the phone and kept his mouth shut about it, it could have been different. If he had taken the photos, made the videos etc and then posted them saying "A well placed source has provided me with this information, enjoy!" then he could have argued shield law to protect that he was his own source etc.
He screwed up, letting his ego get the better of him, admitting that he had the phone and bought it and the way he got it. Maybe it would have been a slap on the wrist in the end had Gawker not attempted this kind of stunt a few weeks before over the tablet rumors and had they not gone on places like Twitter declaring they would happily do it again for the phone.