State v. Warner
| Citation | 436 S.C. 395,872 S.E.2d 638 |
| Decision Date | 13 April 2022 |
| Docket Number | Appellate Case No. 2020-000930,Opinion No. 28094 |
| Parties | The STATE, Respondent, v. Justin Jamal WARNER, Petitioner. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina |
Chief Appellate Defender Robert Michael Dudek and Appellate Defender Adam Sinclair Ruffin, of Columbia, for Petitioner.
Attorney General Alan McCrory Wilson, Deputy Attorney General Donald J. Zelenka, Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General Melody Jane Brown, and Senior Assistant Attorney General W. Edgar Salter III, of Columbia, for Respondent.
A jury convicted Justin Jamal Warner of murder, attempted armed robbery, and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. The court of appeals affirmed. We granted Warner's petition for a writ of certiorari to address: (1) whether the trial court was correct to deny Warner's motion to suppress cell-site location information (CSLI)1 seized from his cell phone service provider; and (2) whether an out-of-court viewing by Warner's probation officer of a crime-scene video and the officer's identification of Warner as the man in the video required a hearing under Neil v. Biggers , 409 U.S. 188, 93 S. Ct. 375, 34 L. Ed. 2d 401 (1972). We find the trial court correctly ruled the identification made from the video did not require a Biggers hearing. As to the CSLI, we hold the warrant the trial court found invalid because the warrant sought information stored in another state is not—at least for that reason—invalid. We affirm the court of appeals as to the Biggers issue and remand to the trial court for further proceedings as to Warner's motion to suppress CSLI.
On April 30, 2015, Warner entered the BP store at the intersection of I-85 and S.C. 153 in Anderson County. Warner showed his identification to the cashier for the purpose of purchasing cigars. The cashier—Mradulaben Patel—entered Warner's date of birth into the computerized cash register and opened it. Warner then pulled out a gun, pointed it at Patel, and attempted to reach into the cash drawer. When Patel resisted, Warner shot her. Warner then left the store without completing the robbery. Patel died several days after the shooting.
Officers from the Anderson County Sheriff's Office obtained video of the incident from security cameras installed at the store. On May 4, 2015, officers received an anonymous Crimestoppers tip alleging Warner was the person who committed the crimes. After reviewing the tip, officers realized Warner's date of birth matched the date Patel entered into the register. A detective then contacted Nathan Goolsby—Warner's probation officer in Georgia—and sent him the crime-scene video. The detective asked Goolsby whether he could identify the person in the video as Warner. Goolsby then identified Warner as the person in the video.
Also on May 4, an Anderson County magistrate issued a warrant to "T-Mobile" authorizing the seizure of The warrant indicated it sought "records located at [an address in] New Jersey." A detective sent the warrant by facsimile to T-Mobile at the offices of its "Law Enforcement Relations Group" in New Jersey. Three days later, the Law Enforcement Relations Group responded—also by facsimile—stating, "This is in response to the Search Warrant, dated May 04, 2015, and served upon T-Mobile USA, Inc. on May 7, 2015." The facsimile response attached the requested records and indicated, "Original materials follow via US Mail."
An FBI expert testified the records showed Warner's cell phone communicating with cell towers near the location of the crime—indicating his presence near the BP store—at the general time the crime occurred.2 The FBI expert's testimony was important to proving Warner committed the crimes because the State also proved Warner lived in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, over 130 miles from the BP store. The FBI expert's testimony indicated Warner drove along I-85 from the Atlanta area past S.C. 153 into Greenville County, and then returned to Anderson County in the general vicinity of the BP store at approximately the time of the crimes.
Warner moved to suppress the CSLI. During the suppression hearing, the State explained that cell phone providers like T-Mobile require a warrant to be sent to their offices in another state. The trial court summarily ruled the warrant was invalid because the requested records were stored in New Jersey, and it was "beyond the scope of authority of a [South Carolina] magistrate to obtain these records" in New Jersey. The trial court nevertheless denied the motion to suppress, finding the law at that time did not require a warrant. Warner also requested a Biggers hearing, contending Goolsby identified him in an unnecessarily suggestive identification procedure. The trial court ruled Biggers was not applicable because Goolsby was not an eyewitness and refused to conduct a hearing.
Warner's trial took place from May 22 to May 25, 2017. After the jury convicted him, the trial court sentenced Warner to life in prison for murder and concurrent prison terms of twenty years for attempted armed robbery and five years for possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Warner appealed, and the court of appeals affirmed the trial court on all issues. State v. Warner , 430 S.C. 76, 842 S.E.2d 361 (Ct. App. 2020). We granted Warner's petition for a writ of certiorari only on the two questions explained above.
Before 2014, courts generally did not even discuss whether the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant for digital information generated by or stored on a cell phone. See generally United States v. Graham , 824 F.3d 421, 428-29, 428-29 n.6, 429 n.7 (4th Cir. 2016) (en banc) (); Eric Lode, Annotation, Validity of Use of Cellular Telephone or Tower to Track Prospective, Real Time, or Historical Position of Possessor of Phone Under State Law , 94 A.L.R. 6th 579 (2014). The Supreme Court's 2014 decision in Riley v. California , 573 U.S. 373, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 189 L. Ed. 2d 430 (2014), made clear the Fourth Amendment does protect digital information stored on a cell phone. See State v. Brown , 423 S.C. 519, 523-24, 815 S.E.2d 761, 763-64 (2018) (discussing Riley ). When Warner murdered Patel in 2015, however, no South Carolina court—nor any federal court whose precedent binds our courts—had addressed whether the Fourth Amendment protects digital information derived from a cell phone but not stored on it, such as CSLI. In 2016, the Fourth Circuit found that it does not. Graham , 824 F.3d at 427.3 According to the Fourth Circuit, 824 F.3d at 428.
In 2017, therefore, at the time of Warner's trial, it appeared that a person had no reasonable expectation of privacy in their CSLI held by a cell phone service provider and the Fourth Amendment did not require a warrant for the seizure of CSLI. The trial court in this case relied on Graham in finding the Fourth Amendment did not apply, stating "the search warrant under the Graham case was not needed." Based on Graham , the trial court found Warner's voluntary use of his cell phone and the consequent provision of CSLI to the cell phone service provider resulted in the loss of any expectation of privacy Warner may have otherwise had in the information.
In 2018, however—after Warner's trial and while his appeal was pending at the court of appeals—the Supreme Court held CSLI is subject to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Carpenter , 585 U.S. at ––––, 138 S. Ct. at 2217, 201 L. Ed. 2d at 525. The State had not challenged the trial court's ruling that the warrant was invalid, Warner , 430 S.C. at 92, 842 S.E.2d at 369, which left for the court of appeals only the question of whether the exclusionary rule should be applied. The court of appeals found the exclusionary rule should not apply and affirmed. 430 S.C. at 94, 842 S.E.2d at 370.
At oral argument before this Court, Justices raised difficult questions as to how—if South Carolina courts do not have authority to issue warrants for the seizure of records kept in another state—law enforcement may reasonably carry out its investigative responsibilities in this modern digital age. The answers, though sincere and realistic, were unsatisfactory. Therefore, and in light of our concerns that the trial court mistakenly found the warrant invalid, we find it necessary to analyze the validity of the May 4, 2015 warrant. As our Rules acknowledge, and as this Court has held many times, we may affirm on any ground appearing in the record. See Rule 220(c), SCACR (); State v. King , 422 S.C. 47, 64 n.5, 810 S.E.2d 18, 27 n.5 (2017) (same); State v. Johnson , 278 S.C. 668, 669-70, 301 S.E.2d 138, 139 (1983) (same).4
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