State v. Manning

• Decision Date: 13 January 2020
• Docket Number: 080834,A-10 Sept. Term 2018
• Citation: 222 A.3d 662,240 N.J. 308
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Randy K. MANNING, Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

240 N.J. 308

222 A.3d 662

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Randy K. MANNING, Defendant-Respondent.

A-10 Sept. Term 2018

080834

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued September 23, 2019

Decided January 13, 2020

William P. Miller, Special Deputy Attorney General/Acting Assistant Prosecutor, argued the cause for appellant (Mark Musella, Bergen County Prosecutor, attorney; William P. Miller, of counsel and on the briefs, and Catherine A. Foddai, Legal Assistant, on the briefs).

Alison Perrone, First Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for respondent (Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney; Alison Perrone, of counsel and on the brief, and Michael Confusione, Designated Counsel, on the letter brief).

Frank Muroski, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for amicus curiae Attorney General of New Jersey (Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, attorney; Sarah Lichter, Deputy Attorney General, of counsel and on the brief).

Rubin M. Sinins argued the cause for amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins and American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey Foundation, attorneys; Rubin M. Sinins, Herbert I. Waldman, Newark, Annabelle Steinhacker, Alexander Shalom, and Jeanne LoCicero, on the brief).

JUSTICE ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court.

Cell-phone records can reveal intimate details about peoples' lives and relationships -- the persons and groups with whom they associate, the doctors they choose, the religious services they attend, the stores they patronize, the recreational places they visit, and much more.¹ See State v. Earls, 214 N.J. 564, 586, 70 A.3d 630 (2013) ; State v. Lunsford, 226 N.J. 129, 131, 141 A.3d 270 (2016) ; State v. Hunt, 91 N.J. 338, 345, 450 A.2d 952 (1982). In Earls, we recognized that individuals have an expectation of privacy in cell-phone location information cognizable under the New Jersey Constitution. 214 N.J. at 588, 70 A.3d 630. Accordingly, we held that law-enforcement officers may secure such information from a cell-phone service provider only when armed with a judicial warrant supported by probable cause or when justified by an exception to the warrant requirement. Id. at 588-89, 70 A.3d 630. We applied Earls, decided in 2013, prospectively. Id. at 591, 70 A.3d 630.

We acknowledged, however, that since a January 12, 2010 amendment to the New Jersey Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act (Wiretap Act), the securing of cell-phone location information required law-enforcement officials to obtain a court order based on a reasonable-grounds standard supported by specific and articulable facts, or a warrant. See id. at 591-92, 70 A.3d 630 ; N.J.S.A. 2A:156A-29(c) and (e). That statutory scheme does not provide for an exigent-circumstances exception (other than in one limited circumstance) or a suppression remedy for unlawfully acquired cell-phone location information. See N.J.S.A. 2A:156A-27, -29(c) and (e), -32, and -34.

In the case before us, in 2011, after the Wiretap Act amendment went into effect but before our decision in Earls, law-enforcement officers -- without a warrant or court order -- obtained defendant Randy K. Manning's cell-phone records by submitting an exigent-circumstances request to a cell-phone service provider. Defendant was convicted of murder, desecration of human remains, and related crimes. The Appellate Division reversed, in part, on the ground that the trial court erred in not suppressing defendant's cell-phone records.

Defendant argues that no legitimate exigency justified the violation of the Wiretap Act's warrant/court-order requirement and therefore his cell-phone records introduced at his murder trial should have been suppressed. The State contends that the law-enforcement officers faced exigent circumstances that justified securing the cell-phone records without a warrant or court order based on the heinous nature of the crime under investigation, the murderer's fugitive status and effort to conceal his identity, and the fear that evidence might be destroyed by the delay in seeking a judicial order.

The 2010 amendment to the Wiretap Act provided individuals with an expectation of privacy in their cell-phone location information. Earls, 214 N.J. at 589, 70 A.3d 630. We now hold that the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures in Article I, Paragraph 7 of our State Constitution also conferred an expectation of privacy in that information since 2010. Therefore, in 2011, our Constitution required law-enforcement officers to obtain either a warrant or court order for cell-phone location information in accordance with the standards of N.J.S.A. 2A:156A-29 or to satisfy one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement. Here, the constitutional propriety of the police conduct depends on the application of the exigent-circumstances doctrine.

In view of the totality of the evidence, we conclude that the State did not establish that the exigent-circumstances exception justified securing defendant's cell-phone records without a warrant or court order. Indeed, during the period the perpetrator remained at large and the nature of the threat assessment remained unchanged, law-enforcement officers secured warrants before and after they obtained defendant's cell-phone records by an exigent-circumstances request. The State failed to demonstrate that there was an objectively reasonable basis to believe that lives might be endangered or evidence destroyed in the time necessary to secure a warrant. See State v. Johnson, 193 N.J. 528, 552-53, 940 A.2d 1185 (2008) ; State v. DeLuca, 168 N.J. 626, 632-33, 775 A.2d 1284 (2001).

Accordingly, the improperly obtained cell-phone records should have been suppressed.

The wrongful admission of that information at defendant's trial requires the reversal of his convictions. We are therefore compelled to remand for a new trial.

I.

We turn first to the procedural history and facts.

In December 2011, a Bergen County grand jury returned an indictment charging defendant Manning with twelve offenses, including murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(1) ; felony murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3(a)(3) ; second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, N.J.S.A. 2C:39-4(a) ; second-degree aggravated arson, N.J.S.A. 2C:l7-l(a); second-degree desecration of human remains, N.J.S.A. 2C:22-1(a)(1) ; third-degree hindering apprehension, N.J.S.A. 2C:29-3(b)(4) ; and second-degree burglary, N.J.S.A. 2C:18-2.

Before trial, defendant moved to suppress the admission of his cell-phone records that were secured, without a warrant or court order, based on an exigent-circumstances request to his cell-phone provider. The trial court conducted a suppression hearing at which one witness testified -- Detective John Frazer of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office. The record is mostly drawn from Detective Frazer's testimony at the hearing and one of the affidavits he prepared for warrant applications for phone records and wiretaps.

Sometime between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. on August 16, 2011, a resident of Village Circle West in Paramus was awakened by the sounds of a barking dog and a car alarm. Looking out his window, he saw a light-skinned man walk away from a 2001 black Chevy Tahoe with New York license plates. Later that morning, at approximately 7:56 a.m., the resident called 9-1-1 to report a suspicious vehicle.

When Paramus Police officers arrived, they peered through the Chevy's rear windows and observed a sheet covering what appeared to be burnt human remains. At least eleven detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office responded to the scene and began their investigation. Detective Frazer joined his colleagues at approximately 8:30 a.m., remained at that location for about two hours, and then went to his office. There, in accordance with his assigned duties, he began to compile information and prepare affidavits for warrant applications while detectives investigated in the field.

The Chevy's license plate number matched a vehicle registered to Rhian Stoute of Brooklyn, New York. A copy of Stoute's fingerprints matched the body in the vehicle.² By 10:10 a.m., an autopsy indicated that Stoute had died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head and torso and that his body had been set on fire after his death.

Bergen County detectives spoke with Stoute's mother, who provided them with her son's cell-phone number. At approximately 3:11 p.m., Detective Frazer submitted to Sprint Nextel an exigent-circumstances request for Stoute's cell-phone records.³ Approximately twenty minutes later, Sprint Nextel produced Stoute's cell-phone records. Although the records could not identify the present location of Stoute's phone, which was either turned off or not functioning, they did pinpoint the various cell-site locations with which Stoute's cell phone connected the previous day. Assuming that Stoute was in possession of his cell phone, he traveled in the afternoon from New York City to various points in Bergen County, visiting in the early evening the vicinity of Englewood Hospital, where he made his last outgoing call around 7:15 p.m. That cell phone, however, was in Brooklyn when it received an incoming call that went unanswered at around 8:20 p.m.

At approximately 4:30 p.m. on August 16, detectives interviewed Stoute's friend Brendan Dunbar, who provided the following information. Earlier that day, he became concerned about Stoute's failure to show up for a meeting and called one of Stoute's friends -- defendant. Defendant told Dunbar that he "had been with [Stoute] on August 15, 2011, sometime between 7:00-8:00 p.m. in Brooklyn," when Stoute dropped him off at a train station. Detective Frazer believed that defendant's purported account to Dunbar conflicted with Stoute's cell-site records.

During this period, detectives obtained a judicial warrant to search the Chevy and discovered a fraudulent California driver's license between the seat and center console....