The Connecticut Supreme Court has declined to address whether state judges can issue search warrants for email accounts maintained by out-of-state companies like Google.

The court took up the issue in the case of former Monroe youth minister David Esarey, who was sentenced in May 2010 to six years in prison for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl and trading nude photos with her.

Justices upheld Esarey's convictions Friday. But they decided not to address his appeal argument that a state judge had no authority to issue a search warrant for his Google Gmail account because Google is based in California.

The court ruled instead that the issuing of the search warrant didn't affect the jury's verdict.