State v. Gonzalez

• Decision Date: 02 July 2021
• Docket Number: K1\12-341A,No. 2019-67-C.A.,2019-67-C.A.
• Citation: 254 A.3d 813
• Parties: STATE v. Tony GONZALEZ.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

254 A.3d 813

STATE

v.Tony GONZALEZ.

No. 2019-67-C.A.

K112-341A

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 2, 2021

Christopher R. Bush, Department of Attorney General, for State.

Tony Gonzalez, pro se.

Present: Suttell, C.J., Goldberg, Robinson, Lynch Prata, and Long, JJ.

Justice Long, for the Court.

The defendant, Tony Gonzalez (defendant or Mr. Gonzalez), appeals pro se from a Superior Court judgment of conviction for first-degree murder, assault with intent to commit a felony, and two counts of discharging a firearm while committing a crime of violence. This case had been previously tried, but this Court vacated the defendant's conviction based on our holding that the trial justice erred in failing to exclude evidence seized following the warrantless arrest of Mr. Gonzalez in his mother's home. State v. Gonzalez , 136 A.3d 1131, 1154, 1159 (R.I. 2016).

Mr. Gonzalez alleges that three errors were committed by the trial justice: (1) the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained from his cell phone, which police seized following his warrantless arrest; (2) the denial of his motion to discharge the jury in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution; and (3) the denial of his motions for a mistrial. Mr. Gonzalez also contends that the state violated its obligations under Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). For the reasons stated herein, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court. A summary of the facts relevant to this appeal follows, and additional facts are included in the discussion of the issues.

Facts and Procedural History

Saturday, January 21, 2012, was a snowy winter day that began with the breakup of defendant and his "on and off" girlfriend, Patricia Delomba. Sadly, the day ended in senseless violence and tragedy for Ms. Delomba, her new boyfriend Matthew Chivers, and their mutual friend, Carl Cunningham.¹

In the evening, hours after Ms. Delomba ended her longtime hectic relationship with defendant, defendant traded multiple phone calls with Mr. Chivers about meeting up for a fight. Mr. Gonzalez also communicated with Ms. Delomba; she told him via text message not to come to her house, but he responded that he was coming over. He also indicated that "the ACI was going to be his new home."

At 11:43 p.m., Ms. Delomba received a text message from defendant stating that he was on his way to her house. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Gonzalez arrived at the house and began banging on the door. When Ms. Delomba opened the door, Mr. Gonzalez said that he wanted to fight Mr. Chivers. Ms. Delomba told defendant to leave, and she slammed the door closed. However, defendant entered the house and pushed his way into the bedroom, where he found Ms. Delomba, Mr. Chivers, and Mr. Cunningham. The defendant, with a gun in hand, stated, "I got something for you." Mr. Chivers and Mr. Cunningham both attempted to take cover in the bedroom closet, but defendant fired bullets toward the closet until he exhausted his supply of ammunition, fatally wounding Mr. Cunningham. The defendant then fled the scene. Within minutes, Mr. Chivers and Ms. Delomba contacted 911 to report the shooting.

Shortly after Mr. Cunningham was fatally shot at around midnight, the police interviewed Ms. Delomba at the police station. She described what had transpired at her home, identified Mr. Gonzalez as the shooter, and authorized a search of her cell phone. She also gave the police Mr. Gonzalez's cell-phone number. Using the number, the police determined that defendant's cell phone was serviced through Sprint Metro PCS (Metro PCS). The police made an initial request to Metro PCS for any information about the cell phone in order to determine whether the phone and, in turn, Mr. Gonzalez could be located. Metro PCS did not have this capability. However, the police were able to locate Mr. Gonzalez at approximately 5:30 a.m. when his brother, who cooperated with the investigation, placed a controlled phone call to defendant.

Shortly after 7 a.m., police from the Warwick Police Department and the Providence Police Department arrested defendant in his mother's house without a warrant. Once at police headquarters, the police discovered a cell phone on defendant's person. They then applied for and executed two warrants: an administrative warrant served on Metro PCS to obtain any phone records associated with defendant and a search warrant for defendant's cell phone.

The search of defendant's cell phone revealed the phone's call log, along with photographs and text messages. The administrative warrant served on Metro PCS produced a log of all incoming and outgoing calls from defendant's cell phone in the hours surrounding the death of Mr. Cunningham. Although the Metro PCS call log did not reveal any names or other explicitly identifying information, the police managed to identify phone subscribers associated with numbers from the call log by using various internet search engines. The police tracked down several of those individuals and interviewed them in an effort to assist with their investigation.

Mr. Gonzalez was indicted in May 2012 on four counts: murder in the first degree, resulting in the death of Carl Cunningham; assault with intent to commit a felony; and two counts of discharging a firearm while committing a crime of violence. The defendant was tried by jury in 2013 and was found guilty on all counts. After our opinion in Gonzalez , in which we vacated defendant's conviction after concluding that the trial justice erred in failing to exclude evidence seized during defendant's warrantless arrest, Mr. Gonzalez was retried in 2017; he was again convicted by a jury on all four counts. For those offenses, the trial justice sentenced Mr. Gonzalez to life imprisonment at the Adult Correctional Institutions for the murder conviction; a consecutive twenty-year sentence for the assault conviction; and a life sentence plus a consecutive ten years for the convictions for two counts of discharging a firearm when committing a crime of violence. Mr. Gonzalez timely appealed.

The Motion to Suppress

In a pretrial motion, defendant had moved to suppress the cell phone along with any information retrieved from the cell phone, including the identity, testimony, statements, or evidence of certain individuals discovered through the phone records. The defendant asserted that, in accordance with this Court's opinion in Gonzalez , the cell phone was seized pursuant to an illegal arrest, and, therefore, the fruits of that seizure must be suppressed pursuant to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Gonzalez , 136 A.3d at 1156, 1159.

After hearing testimony by two officers involved in defendant's arrest and the subsequent search of his cell phone, the trial justice found that police obtained the cell phone as a result of defendant's unlawful arrest. The trial justice therefore suppressed the cell phone along with any information discovered on the cell phone. However, he denied the motion to suppress with respect to testimony of the individuals discovered through the cell-phone records, finding that information to be admissible under the independent source doctrine. The trial justice cited testimony by one of the officers, who explained that he "learned of [the] identities by * * * taking the phone number that was given to him by Ms. Delomba very early in the investigation and bringing that to Metro PCS[,]" which, in turn, generated a call log; police were able to search the internet to identify subscribers for those numbers.

"When this Court reviews a motion to suppress, we ‘will not overturn a trial justice's factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous.’ " State v. Tejeda , 171 A.3d 983, 994-95 (R.I. 2017) (quoting State v. Harrison , 66 A.3d 432, 441 (R.I. 2013) ). "With respect to any purported violations of a defendant's constitutional rights, ‘this Court must make an independent examination of the record to determine if the defendant's rights have been violated.’ " Id. (brackets omitted) (quoting Harrison , 66 A.3d at 441 ). "In conducting the independent examination, ‘we view the evidence in the record in the light most favorable to the state.’ " Id. (quoting State v. Santos , 64 A.3d 314, 319 (R.I. 2013) ).

"The exclusionary rule, which includes within its scope certain evidence derived from illegal police activity, does not apply when the government learns of evidence from a source independent of the original violation." State v. Ducharme , 601 A.2d 937, 942 (R.I. 1991) (citing Wong Sun v. United States , 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963) ).

Here, there is no question that defendant's arrest was illegal, as this Court decided in Gonzalez . See Gonzalez , 136 A.3d at 1154. Accordingly, our analysis is limited to considering whether the identity and testimony of the individuals that Mr. Gonzalez sought to suppress would have been discovered independent of the illegal arrest and, in turn, the discovery of defendant's cell phone on his person. After our independent review of the record, we cannot say that the trial justice's findings were clearly erroneous. The testimony by the officers involved in the search supports the finding that, although the police learned the identity of certain individuals after searching defendant's cell phone itself, they had lawfully obtained a call log pursuant to an administrative warrant served on Metro PCS using the phone number given to them by Ms. Delomba early in the investigation. Using various internet search engines, the police managed to assign identities to the phone numbers that appeared in the call log. As such, it is clear to this Court that the identity, and subsequent testimony, of the individuals that Mr. Gonzalez sought to suppress were obtained independently from the illegal seizure of his cell phone and, therefore, the trial justice did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress.

The Motion to Discharge the Jury

In a second...