State v. Gore
| Citation | 846 S.E.2d 295 |
| Decision Date | 16 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. COA19-608,COA19-608 |
| Parties | STATE of North Carolina v. Damian Maurice GORE |
| Court | Court of Appeal of North Carolina (US) |
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Jeremy D. Lindsley, for the State.
New Hanover County Public Defender Jennifer Harjo, by Assistant Public Defenders Brendan O'Donnell and Emily Zvejnieks, for defendant.
Damian Maurice Gore ("defendant") appeals from judgment entered on his Alford guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter and robbery with a dangerous weapon following the denial of his motion to suppress certain evidence. On appeal, defendant argues the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress because the State acquired his historical cell-site information without a warrant, in violation of both his federal and state constitutional rights. For the following reasons, we affirm.
On 24 April 2017, defendant was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, possession of a stolen firearm, and robbery with a dangerous weapon. Evidence against defendant included certain cell-phone records and historical cell-site location information ("CSLI"), which police obtained pursuant to orders issued under N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 15A-262 and 15-263. Defendant moved to suppress this evidence and a hearing was held on 27 August 2018.
At the hearing, Detective Travis Williams ("Detective Williams") of the Wilmington Police Department testified that on 30 December 2015 at 12:44 a.m., his department received reports of a shooting. Detective Williams responded to the reports and found a deceased black male lying in the front yard of an abandoned home. The man suffered from multiple gunshot wounds
and was later identified as Rashaun McKoy ("Mr. McKoy"). Law enforcement also received information that a white Altima was seen possibly leaving the murder scene, and proceeded to treat it as a possible suspect vehicle.
Deputy Johnson of the New Hanover County Sherriff's Department spotted the white Altima and followed it into an apartment complex. Deputy Johnson contacted the owner of the car and was advised that Rashaun McKoy should be driving the car. As the white Altima backed into a parking space, Deputy Johnson pulled in front of the car, blocking it in, and activated the blue lights on her patrol vehicle. A black male exited the car and asked Deputy Johnson why she pulled him over. When Deputy Johnson ordered the man to get back into the car, he took off running. Deputy Johnson chased after the man but was unable to catch him. However, she observed that the man appeared to be grabbing at his waistband while he was running. Later that morning, police found a .38 caliber revolver covered in blood in the direction that the man had fled.
Detective Williams later searched the white Altima and found illegal drugs, a gun, and a blood-covered cell phone which belonged to Mr. McKoy. A search of Mr. McKoy's phone log revealed several incoming and outgoing calls from a number ending in 0731 and listed under the name "Dame." All of the calls occurred within four hours of the shooting, including three calls placed just minutes before the incident. Upon determining that the number belonged to defendant, Detective Williams applied for a court order to obtain defendant's cell phone records, including CSLI, for the period of 28 December 2015 through 1 January 2016.
Detective Williams completed the application pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 15A-262 and 15-263, sworn under oath and including a supporting affidavit. A judge issued an order granting the application, finding that "the applicant has shown Probable Cause that the information sought is relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation, involving a First Degree Murder." The order required Sprint to disclose the requested cell phone records, including defendant's historical CSLI. Based on the CSLI, law enforcement placed defendant in both the neighborhood of the shooting and in the area where Deputy Johnson had confronted the driver of the white Altima at the relevant times.
In support of his motion to suppress, defendant argued that Detective Williams violated both his federal and state constitutional rights in searching his cell phone records, including his CSLI, without first obtaining a warrant supported by probable cause. Finding that the court order was equivalent to a warrant and supported by probable cause, the trial court denied defendant's motion. Defendant entered a conditional Alford guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter and robbery with a dangerous weapon, but appealed the order denying his motion to suppress.
On appeal, defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress because the State's acquisition of his CSLI without a warrant or probable cause violated his federal and state constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. He further contends that, in light of this violation, his CSLI and the evidence derived from it should be suppressed. We disagree.
This Court reviews a denial of a motion to suppress for "whether the trial court's findings of fact are supported by the evidence and whether the findings of fact support the conclusions of law." State v. Cockerham , 155 N.C. App. 729, 736, 574 S.E.2d 694, 699 (2003). The trial court's conclusions of law are reviewed de novo. State v. Johnson , 204 N.C. App. 259, 262, 693 S.E.2d 711, 714 (2010).
We first address defendant's claim with respect to his rights under the federal constitution. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" by the government without a warrant supported by probable cause. U.S. CONST. amend. IV. In Carpenter v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S.Ct. 2206, 201 L. Ed. 2d 507 (2018) the United States Supreme Court considered whether the government's warrantless acquisition of a defendant's historical CSLI was an unreasonable search prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. Concluding that "an individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of his physical movements as captured through CSLI," the Court held that the government's acquisition of a defendant's CSLI constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at ––––, 138 S.Ct. at 2217, 201 L. Ed. 2d at 521. Accordingly, if the government wishes to access such information, it must first obtain a warrant. Id. at ––––, 138 S.Ct. at 2221, 201 L. Ed. 2d at 525.
In addition, the Carpenter court further held that the Stored Communications Act, which allowed law enforcement to obtain CSLI so long as they had " ‘reasonable grounds’ for believing that the records were ‘relevant and material to an ongoing investigation,’ " did not satisfy the warrant requirement because it required something less than probable cause. Id. at ––––, 138 S.Ct. at 2221, 201 L. Ed. 2d at 525-26. Thus, the Court held that government acquisition of CSLI based on an order issued pursuant to the Stored Communications Act or its equivalent, rather than pursuant to a warrant based on probable cause, would violate a defendant's Fourth Amendment rights. Id. at ––––, 138 S.Ct. at 2221, 201 L. Ed. 2d at 526.
On remand, the Sixth Circuit held that though the government should have obtained a warrant before searching the defendant's CSLI, the trial court did not err in denying the defendant's motion to suppress his CSLI because the federal "good faith exception" to the exclusionary rule applied. United States v. Carpenter , 926 F.3d 313, 317-18 (2019). Though evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is generally excluded, under the good faith exception, " ‘when the police act with an objectively ‘reasonable good-faith belief’ that their conduct is lawful,’ " the evidence obtained from an otherwise unlawful search will not be excluded. Davis v. United States , 564 U.S. 229, 238, 131 S.Ct. 2419, 2427, 180 L. Ed. 2d 285, 295 (2011) (citations omitted). Thus, the Sixth Circuit held that though the warrantless search of the defendant's CSLI violated his Fourth Amendment rights, "it was not unreasonable for the FBI agents who acquired Carpenter's CSLI to rely on [the Stored Communications Act]" because it was valid at the time. Carpenter , 926 F.3d at 317-18.
Here, as discussed in more detail below, the search of defendant's CSLI was pursuant to a court order supported by probable cause. However, we note that even assuming law enforcement did conduct a warrantless search in violation of defendant's Fourth Amendment rights, the federal good faith exception to the exclusionary rule would apply.1 Detective Williams applied for the court order to obtain defendant's cell phone records in 2016, two years prior to the United States Supreme Court's decision in Carpenter . In light of the prevailing law at the time, it was reasonable for Detective Williams and the judge who approved the application to access defendant's CSLI to believe that a warrantless search of five days of a suspect's CSLI was lawful. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion based on any Fourth Amendment grounds.
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