Case Title: Commonwealth v. Estabrook

Citation: 

Docket Number: SJC-11833

State: massachusetts

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Date: 2015-09-28T00:00:00Z

Document:
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SJC-11833 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  JASON ESTABROOK 
(and nine companion cases1). 
 
 
 
Middlesex.     May 7, 2015. - September 28, 2015. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, 
& Hines, JJ. 
 
 
 
Cellular Telephone.  Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, 
Probable cause.  Search and Seizure, Expectation of 
privacy, Probable cause, Warrant, Affidavit, Fruits of 
illegal search.  Probable Cause.  Evidence, Result of 
illegal search.  Practice, Criminal, Warrant, Affidavit. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on December 6, 2012. 
 
 
Pretrial motions to suppress evidence were heard by Kathe 
M. Tuttman, J. 
 
 
Applications for leave to file interlocutory appeals were 
allowed by Lenk, J., in the Supreme Judicial Court for the 
county of Suffolk, and the appeals were reported by her. 
 
 
 
George E. Murphy, Jr., for Jason Estabrook. 
 
Daniel Beck (Susan M. Costa with him) for Adam Bradley. 
                     
 
1 Four against Jason Estabrook and five against Adam 
Bradley. 
2 
 
 
Jamie Michael Charles, Assistant District Attorney (David 
Marc Solet, Assistant District Attorney, with him) for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
Andrew Sellars, for American Civil Liberties Union of 
Massachusetts & another, amici curiae, submitted a brief. 
 
 
 
BOTSFORD, J.  In this case, we consider again a search of 
historical cellular site location information (CSLI).2  See 
Commonwealth v. Augustine, 467 Mass. 230 (2014), S.C., 470 Mass. 
837 (2015).  The defendants, Jason Estabrook and Adam Bradley, 
stand indicted for murder and related crimes arising out of a 
shooting that took place on July 7, 2012, in Billerica.  They 
moved to suppress evidence of historical CSLI pertaining to 
Bradley's cellular telephone that the police initially obtained 
in July, 2012, without a search warrant but in compliance with 
18 U.S.C. §  2703 (2006), and then, in November, 2013, 
reobtained pursuant to a warrant.  The defendants also sought 
                     
 
 
2 Cellular site location information (CSLI) "refers to a 
cellular telephone service record or records that contain 
information identifying the base station towers and sectors that 
receive transmissions from a [cellular] telephone" (quotations 
and citation omitted).  Commonwealth v. Augustine, 467 Mass. 
230, 231 n.1 (2014), S.C., 470 Mass. 837 (2015).  It is a record 
of a subscriber's cellular telephone's communication with a 
cellular service provider's base stations (i.e., cell sites or 
cell towers) during calls made or received, id. at 237-238; this 
identifies the approximate location of the "active cellular 
telephone handset within [the cellular service provider's] 
network based on the handset's communication with a particular 
cell site."  See id. at 238.  Historical CSLI is "CSLI relating 
to and generated by cellular telephone use that has already 
occurred at the time of the order authorizing the disclosure of 
such data" (quotations and citation omitted).  Id. at 231 n.1.   
3 
 
suppression of statements they each made to police in 2012, 
following the receipt of Bradley's CSLI.  A judge of the 
Superior Court denied the motions after an evidentiary hearing; 
the defendants filed these interlocutory appeals.  See Mass. R. 
Crim. P. 15 (a) (2), as appearing in 422 Mass. 1501 (1996).   
 
Returning to an issue briefly touched on in Augustine, 467 
Mass. at 255 n.37, we conclude that a defendant's reasonable 
expectation of privacy protected under art. 14 of the 
Massachusetts Declaration of Rights is not violated where the 
Commonwealth requests up to six hours of historical CSLI without 
obtaining a search warrant.  In this case, however, because the 
Commonwealth requested two weeks of historical CSLI, a search 
warrant was required, even though the Commonwealth proposes to 
use only six hours of the CSLI as evidence at trial.  
Nevertheless, we decide that many of the defendants' statements 
and Bradley's CSLI are not subject to suppression on account of 
the CSLI that was first obtained unlawfully:  the defendant's 
statements were not made in response to being confronted by that 
tainted CSLI, and the 2013 search warrant was supported by 
probable cause derived from information the Commonwealth 
obtained independently rather than through exploitation of the 
tainted CSLI.   
 
Background.  To provide context, we summarize some of the 
background facts as found by the motion judge, reserving 
4 
 
additional facts for consideration in connection with the issues 
raised in these appeals.3  At approximately 3:50 A.M. on July 7, 
2012, Quintin Koehler (victim) and his brother, Ryan, were at 
their home in Billerica when they heard loud noises coming from 
the kitchen.  According to Ryan, the two brothers went into the 
kitchen where they were confronted by three to four masked men.  
Each of the intruders appeared to be in his early twenties, and 
at least two of them were holding firearms.  One of the 
intruders, whom we shall call the "first intruder," had a gun 
and ordered the two brothers onto the ground.  The victim 
refused and hit a different intruder, whom we shall call the 
"second intruder," with a tea kettle, after which a struggle 
ensued between them.  At that point one or two of the other 
intruders shot the victim in the head and shoulder.  All the 
intruders then fled the scene on foot.  A few minutes later, 
police and emergency personnel arrived, and at 3:58 A.M. the 
victim was transported to a hospital where he died of a gunshot 
wound to the head.  On July 10, 2012, Nicholas Cappello told 
Deputy Chief Roy Frost of the Billerica police department and 
State police Trooper Anthony DeLucia that he lived with the 
victim, that he regularly purchased and distributed marijuana, 
and that at times he purchased the drugs from a supplier in Lynn 
                     
 
3 The defendants do not appear to dispute the facts stated 
here.    
5 
 
named Ashley.  The police learned that the supplier was Ashley 
Marshall, and that the defendant Bradley was an associate of 
hers.  
Prior to July 25, 2012, an assistant district attorney 
obtained through administrative subpoenas, see G. L. c. 271, 
§ 17B, certain telephone records (call logs) of Bradley and 
Marshall.  The call logs associated with Bradley's cellular 
telephone revealed the time and duration of incoming and 
outgoing calls.  They also showed the telephone numbers 
associated with each call; they did not contain CSLI.  These 
call logs revealed, among other things, that Bradley's telephone 
was in contact with Marshall's telephone often on the night of 
the shooting.   
On July 25, 2012, based on information gleaned from the 
call logs and the police investigation, the Commonwealth filed 
an application in the Superior Court seeking an order to obtain 
from Bradley's cellular service provider certain records, 
including historical CSLI, relating to his cellular telephone 
for the period from July 1 through July 15, 2012.  Pursuant to 
18 U.S.C. § 2703(d), a Superior Court judge issued the requested 
order (§ 2703[d] order).4  Bradley's CSLI evidence indicated that 
                     
 
4 Section 2703(d) of the Federal Stored Communications Act, 
18 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq. (2006), allows a court of competent 
jurisdiction to issue an order requiring a cellular telephone 
company to disclose certain types of records of customers, 
6 
 
at the time the shooting took place, his cellular telephone was 
in the area of Burlington and Bedford and communicating with a 
cell tower located three miles from the victim's home.5   
 
On August 2, 2012, police officers interviewed Bradley, who 
was not in custody and who denied involvement in the July 7 
shooting, but in response to their questions, told the officers 
of his cousin, the defendant Estabrook.  Police then interviewed 
Estabrook on August 15, during which Estabrook volunteered that 
he had sought treatment for a dislocated shoulder at Salem 
Hospital in the early morning hours of July 7, shortly after the 
shooting had occurred.  After the police conducted further 
investigation, on September 26, 2012, Estabrook was arrested for 
the murder of the victim.  On September 27, in another interview 
with the investigating officers, Estabrook detailed the facts of 
                                                                  
including CSLI, to a governmental entity if the government 
establishes that "specific and articulable facts" show 
"reasonable grounds to believe" that the records "are relevant 
and material to an ongoing criminal investigation."   
 
 
 
5 In addition to the Superior Court order pursuant to 18 
U.S.C. § 2703(d) (§ 2703[d] order) pertaining to Bradley's CSLI, 
the Commonwealth obtained § 2703(d) orders requiring the 
disclosure of CSLI associated with the cellular telephone 
numbers of certain persons who are not parties to these appeals, 
covering the period from July 1 to July 15, 2012.  The police 
had learned from previously obtained telephone records (call 
logs) that the cellular telephones of some of the other 
individuals were in contact with Bradley's cellular telephone 
close to the time of the shooting.  The CSLI obtained in 
relation to some of these individuals revealed that their 
cellular telephones also were in the area of the victim's home 
around the time of the shooting.   
 
7 
 
the July 7 home invasion and shooting and implicated himself, 
Bradley, and others in the crimes.  That same day, the officers 
also spoke to Bradley, who again denied any personal 
involvement, saying that he knew of how the incident transpired 
only from what Estabrook had told him.   
 
On December 6, 2012, a Middlesex County grand jury returned 
indictments against Bradley and Estabrook, charging each with 
murder in the first degree, armed home invasion, attempted armed 
robbery, carrying a firearm without a license, and unlawful 
possession of ammunition.  On November 20, 2013, Billerica 
police applied for and obtained search warrants for the same 
CSLI that the Commonwealth had collected pursuant to the 
§ 2703(d) orders obtained in 2012, including Bradley's CSLI 
covering the period from July 1 to July 15, 2012.6  
 
In June, 2014, Bradley and Estabrook filed separate motions 
to suppress evidence of Bradley's historical CSLI on the ground 
that the Commonwealth had obtained this evidence in violation of 
art. 14.7  See Augustine, 467 Mass. at 232.  Both motions also 
                     
6 Deputy Chief Roy Frost of the Billerica police department 
submitted an affidavit in which he recited facts supporting the 
search warrant applications and indicated that the police sought 
the warrants in light of uncertainty as to whether Massachusetts 
law required probable cause and a search warrant, rather than a 
§ 2703(d) order alone, to obtain the CSLI at issue in this case.    
 
 
7 Jason Estabrook did not have a cellular telephone at the 
time of this investigation.  Estabrook contended in his motion 
to suppress that he had standing to argue for suppression of 
8 
 
sought suppression of the defendants' statements made to police 
allegedly derived from the CSLI:  Estabrook argued in favor of 
suppression of his August 15 and September 27 statements; 
Bradley sought suppression of the statements he made on August 2 
and September 27.8  After an evidentiary hearing, the motion 
judge denied the defendants' motions.  The judge determined that 
the July 25, 2012, § 2703(d) order for Bradley's CSLI was not 
supported by probable cause.  She further concluded, however, 
that probable cause and a search warrant were not required for 
the CSLI pertaining to the six-hour period surrounding the time 
of the July 7 shooting because the defendants had no reasonable 
expectation of privacy in CSLI covering so brief a period.  As 
to the CSLI covering the periods beyond this six-hour window, 
the judge ruled that suppression was not called for in light of 
the fact that the police had obtained a search warrant for this 
CSLI, which was supported by probable cause derived from 
evidence independent of the CSLI.  A single justice allowed the 
defendants' applications for interlocutory review and directed 
that their appeals be consolidated and heard in this court.   
                                                                  
Bradley's CSLI because Estabrook used Bradley's telephone at 
times.  The motion judge assumed for argument that Estabrook did 
have standing to challenge the use of Bradley's CSLI.   
 
 
8 Estabrook also appears to have sought suppression of 
substantially all of Bradley's statements made to police during 
the investigation.   
9 
 
 
Discussion.  1.  Standard of review.  "When reviewing the 
denial of a motion to suppress, we accept the judge's findings 
of fact and will not disturb them absent clear error."  
Commonwealth v. Watson, 455 Mass. 246, 250 (2009).  However, we 
undertake "an independent determination as to the correctness of 
the judge's application of constitutional principles to the 
facts as found."  Id.   
 
2.  Warrant requirement.  The defendants challenge the 
motion judge's ruling that the Commonwealth did not need a 
search warrant to obtain the CSLI covering the six-hour window 
surrounding the July 7 shooting.9  They contend that any 
suggestion in this court's decision in Augustine that a request 
for CSLI for a period of six hours or less would not require a 
warrant is irrelevant to this case because here the Commonwealth 
requested CSLI covering a period of two weeks, thereby 
subjecting the request to the warrant requirement of art. 14.  
We agree.   
                     
 
9 Like the motion judge, we assume without deciding that 
Estabrook has standing to challenge the Commonwealth's 
collection of CSLI associated with cellular telephones that he 
was using around the time of the shooting, such as Bradley's.  
However, to the extent Bradley and Estabrook appear to claim 
that they have a right to seek suppression of the CSLI of other 
defendants, their claim is likely waived for lack of proper 
argument, see Mass. R. A. P. 16 (a) (4), as amended, 367 Mass. 
921 (1975), but in any event, we agree with the motion judge 
that they do not have standing because there is no evidence that 
either was using the cellular telephones of other persons who 
are not parties to these appeals.   
 
10 
 
 
In Augustine, the court held that a person has a reasonable 
expectation of privacy in historical CSLI relating to his or her 
cellular telephone, at least insofar as it covers a two-week 
period, and that this expectation of privacy rendered the 
Commonwealth's access to this information a search in the 
constitutional sense, subject to the warrant requirement of art. 
14.10  Augustine, 467 Mass. at 232, 255.  However, we surmised 
that there may be "some period of time for which the 
Commonwealth may obtain a person's historical CSLI by meeting 
the standard for a § 2703(d) order alone, because the duration 
is too brief to implicate the person's reasonable privacy 
interest."  Id. at 254.  Although we declined in Augustine to 
announce "a temporal line of demarcation between when the police 
may not be required to seek a search warrant for historical CSLI 
and when they must do so," we assumed without deciding that "a 
request for historical CSLI . . . for a period of six hours or 
less would not require the police to obtain a search warrant in 
addition to a § 2703(d) order" (emphasis added).  Id. at 255 
n.37.  We now hold that, assuming compliance with the 
requirements of 18 U.S.C. § 2703, the Commonwealth may obtain 
historical CSLI for a period of six hours or less relating to an 
                     
 
10 In so holding, the court noted that probable cause is a 
higher standard than that applicable to a § 2703(d) order.  
Augustine, 467 Mass. at 236.   
 
11 
 
identified person's cellular telephone from the cellular service 
provider without obtaining a search warrant, because such a 
request does not violate the person's constitutionally protected 
expectation of privacy.11,12   
 
It is important to emphasize that, in terms of reasonable 
expectation of privacy, the salient consideration is the length 
of time for which a person's CSLI is requested, not the time 
covered by the person's CSLI that the Commonwealth ultimately 
seeks to use as evidence at trial.  See Augustine, 467 Mass. at 
254.  It would violate the constitutional principles underlying 
                     
11 "[P]olice, trial judges, prosecutors, and defense counsel 
are entitled to as clear a rule as possible" regarding the 
amount of historical CSLI that may be requested without a 
warrant.  See Commonwealth v. Rosario, 422 Mass. 48, 53 (1996).  
Accordingly, there is value in adopting a bright-line rule that 
a request for historical CSLI for a period covering six hours or 
less does not require a search warrant in addition to a 
§ 2703(d) order.  See id. at 56 (adopting bright-line rule that 
"otherwise admissible statement is not to be excluded on the 
ground of unreasonable delay in arraignment, if the statement is 
made within six hours of the arrest" in light of differing views 
of trial court judges as to reasonableness of delays in 
arraigning individual defendants).  See also Commonwealth v. 
Powell, 468 Mass. 272, 279-282 (2014).   
 
 
12 This exception to the warrant requirement for CSLI 
applies only to "telephone call" CSLI, which is at issue in this 
case, and not to "registration" CSLI.  "Telephone call" CSLI 
indicates the "approximate physical location . . . of a cellular 
telephone only when a telephone call is made or received by that 
telephone."  Augustine, 467 Mass. at 258-259 (Gants, J., 
dissenting).  By contrast, "registration" CSLI "provides the 
approximate physical location of a cellular telephone every 
seven seconds unless the telephone is 'powered off,' regardless 
of whether any telephone call is made to or from the telephone."  
Id. at 259 (Gants, J., dissenting).   
12 
 
our decision in Augustine to permit the Commonwealth to request 
and obtain without a warrant two weeks of CSLI -- or longer -- 
so long as the Commonwealth seeks to use evidence relating only 
to six hours of that CSLI.  Cf. United States v. Verdugo-
Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 264 (1990), quoting United States v. 
Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 354 (1974) (Fourth Amendment to the 
United States Constitution "prohibits 'unreasonable searches and 
seizures' whether or not the evidence is sought to be used in a 
criminal trial, and a violation of the Amendment is 'fully 
accomplished' at the time of an unreasonable governmental 
intrusion"); United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 906 (1984) 
(wrong under Fourth Amendment is "unlawful search or seizure 
itself" [citation omitted]).  Because the Commonwealth 
requested, and obtained, CSLI relating to Bradley's cellular 
telephone covering an entire two-week period of which the six 
hours at issue were just a small part, as in Augustine, see 467 
Mass at 232-233, the warrant requirement applied to the entirety 
of Bradley's CSLI that was requested.   
 
This conclusion, however, does not resolve the defendants' 
appeals.  The statements made by Bradley and Estabrook after the 
police obtained Bradley's CSLI still are admissible if they are 
not the fruits of the illegal search of the CSLI.  Similarly, 
Bradley's CSLI is admissible if the search warrant ultimately 
obtained for this CSLI was based on evidence that provided 
13 
 
probable cause and derived from a source independent of the 
tainted CSLI.  We address these two issues in turn. 
 
3.  The defendants' statements.  The defendants assert that 
their statements to the police must be suppressed as a result of 
the initial illegal search of Bradley's CSLI.13  Their claim is a 
general one:  because the police obtained Bradley's CSLI before 
any of the several interviews of Estabrook and Bradley, 
everything the defendants stated during those interviews must be 
suppressed as tainted fruits of the unlawfully obtained CSLI.  
We disagree; the inquiry is more individualized.  The "crucial 
question" regarding whether a particular statement must be 
suppressed as the fruit of the initial illegal search of 
Bradley's CSLI is whether that statement "has been come at by 
exploitation of . . . [the illegal search] or instead by means 
sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint."  
See Commonwealth v. Bradshaw, 385 Mass. 244, 258 (1982), quoting 
Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488 (1963).  With this 
in mind, we examine the statements at issue. 
a.  Bradley's interview on August 2.  The motion judge 
implicitly found that the police were investigating Bradley's 
                     
13 Although the point is far from clear in their briefs, we 
will assume that both defendants argue for suppression of all of 
their various statements to the police.  
 
14 
 
involvement in the shooting prior to obtaining his CSLI,14 as 
demonstrated by her finding that the Commonwealth sought and 
obtained through an administrative subpoena Bradley's call logs 
before seeking and securing the § 2703(d) order for Bradley's 
CSLI.15  When Frost and DeLucia interviewed Bradley on August 2, 
before the officers confronted Bradley with any information 
derived from the tainted CSLI, he identified Estabrook as 
someone who occasionally used his cellular telephone.16  
                     
 
14 As stated in Frost's affidavit, the Commonwealth secured 
§ 2703(d) orders for CSLI, including that associated with 
Bradley's cellular telephone, on July 25, 2012, and obtained 
Bradley's CSLI on July 31, 2012, pursuant to those orders.   
 
 
15 It is true that Frost also said at the motion to suppress 
hearing that Bradley's CSLI was the "strongest" piece of 
information suggesting his involvement in the shooting at the 
time Bradley spoke to police on August 2, 2012.  Nevertheless, 
the thrust of Frost's testimony is that the police focused on 
Bradley as a suspect soon after the shooting and were interested 
in interviewing him prior to obtaining his CSLI.   
 
 
16 State police Trooper Anthony DeLucia asked Bradley 
whether anyone else had used his telephone in the past.  We do 
not view this question as exploiting Bradley's CSLI because he 
already had confronted Bradley with his call logs that revealed 
multiple calls having been placed from Bradley's telephone to 
Ashley Marshall's telephone on the night of the shooting.  The 
basis for DeLucia's questions, therefore, had a source, the call 
logs, that was independent of and indeed existed prior to the 
CSLI.   
 
 
Furthermore, to the extent that the motion judge concluded 
that Bradley led investigators to Estabrook only after being 
confronted with the illegally obtained CSLI, we disagree.  
Although Bradley only described Estabrook's allegedly violent 
tendencies after being confronted with the CSLI, see note 17, 
infra, Bradley volunteered Estabrook's name as his cousin who 
used his cellular telephone before the CSLI came into play in 
15 
 
Accordingly, Bradley's statement did not result from the police 
exploiting Bradley's CSLI and was not a fruit of the illegal 
search of that CSLI.  See Bradshaw, 385 Mass. at 258.  
Suppression of this statement is not required.17     
 
b.  Estabrook's interviews on August 8 and August 15.  Soon 
after Bradley's August 2 interview, the police began 
investigating Estabrook's involvement in the shooting and 
                                                                  
Bradley's August 2 interview.  Given that Bradley told police 
that Estabrook occasionally used his telephone and that the 
police knew from the call logs that Bradley's telephone made and 
received numerous calls immediately around the time of the 
shooting, it is reasonable to assume that the police would have 
investigated Estabrook even absent the information from Bradley 
describing Estabrook's alleged propensity for violence.  Frost 
indicated as much in his testimony at the evidentiary hearing on 
the motion to suppress.   
 
17 In Bradley's August 2 interview, DeLucia and Frost 
"exploited" his CSLI for the first time by asking Bradley, "[I]s 
there any reason why [your] phone would not be in Lynn [on the 
night of the shooting] and somebody would be on it outside of 
Lynn?"  In response, Bradley again mentioned Estabrook, 
described Estabrook as a person who is "crazy" and "likes to rob 
people," and later added that Estabrook is "capable" of 
committing murder.  Independent of whether these statements were 
the fruit of the illegal CSLI, Bradley's statements of opinion 
about Estabrook's supposed character and propensities would be 
inadmissible at trial on the ground that Bradley's opinion on 
such issues is irrelevant.     
 
Bradley also mentioned, at some point after being 
confronted with his CSLI, that Estabrook had a cut on his head 
in July, 2012.  Bradley was unable to say with any certainty, 
however, whether Estabrook had the cut around the time of the 
shooting.  We leave for the motion judge on remand to determine 
whether Bradley's statement regarding Estabrook's cut was 
sufficiently connected to any confrontation with CSLI to warrant 
suppression.  
 
16 
 
learned that his large physical build was consistent with the 
description of the second intruder, and that he, like Bradley, 
had a history of convictions for offenses involving violence and 
firearms.  The police first interviewed Estabrook on August 8.  
 
In the August 8 interview, Frost told Estabrook, "[W]e had 
this incident . . . on that Saturday, early morning hours, and, 
you know, we have some information that puts you there."  Almost 
immediately thereafter, however, State police Trooper Kevin 
Baker said to Estabrook, "[W]e know that there was a group of 
people there.  We have some good information on the reason they 
were there and what was going on and how things went down and 
what those people look like and . . . what their appearance was 
and where they and how they fled," and that Estabrook's name 
"continually keeps coming up."  Here, an argument could be made 
that the police officers were exploiting Bradley's illegally 
obtained CSLI because Frost had been told by Bradley that 
Estabrook occasionally used Bradley's telephone and Bradley's 
CSLI placed the telephone close to the scene of the shooting at 
the time it occurred.  We conclude that it is more probable that 
the police officers' statements reflect the results of the 
continuing investigation into the shooting that they were 
conducting independent of Bradley's CSLI.  At this time the 
police did not have any information about whether Bradley or 
Estabrook had Bradley's telephone at the time of the shooting.  
17 
 
Furthermore, Bradley had given Estabrook's name to investigators 
prior to being confronted with the tainted CSLI, and the police 
then determined, necessarily independent of any CSLI, that 
Estabrook matched the physical appearance of the second intruder 
who had been described by the victim's brother shortly after the 
shooting.  See Commonwealth v. Watkins, 375 Mass. 472, 483 n.9 
(1978) (defendant's statements were not fruit of earlier 
illegality where "statements came to light by means independent 
from" illegality). 
As for Estabrook's August 15 statements, it appears that 
this interview of Estabrook was not recorded, and the undisputed 
testimony of Frost was that the police did not confront 
Estabrook with any information related to the CSLI.  
Accordingly, suppression of evidence of Estabrook's statements 
made on August 8 and August 15 is not called for.  See 
Commonwealth v. Shipps, 399 Mass. 820, 829 (1987) ("improper 
conduct unrelated to the statements does not compel suppression 
of the statements").   
 
c.  Estabrook's interview on September 27.  Unrelated to 
any exploitation of Bradley's CSLI, the police discovered from 
Estabrook during his August 15 interview that he had sought 
treatment at Salem Hospital on the night of the shooting.  
Police obtained copies of Estabrook's medical records and 
gleaned from the hospital surveillance videos that he had 
18 
 
arrived at the hospital shortly after the shooting wearing 
clothes substantially matching those of the second intruder, and 
told medical staff that he was "hit in the head with a tea 
kettle."  Because Estabrook's statement was consistent with the 
victim's brother's account of what happened to the second 
intruder at the scene of the shooting, the police arrested 
Estabrook, and advised him of the Miranda rights.  He agreed to 
speak with the police.  During that interview, Estabrook 
implicated himself, Bradley, and others in the shooting.  These 
statements also are not required to be suppressed.18  See 
Commonwealth v. Nickerson, 79 Mass. App. Ct. 642, 649 (2011) 
(police misconduct "cannot deprive the [Commonwealth] of the 
opportunity to prove [the defendant's] guilt through the 
introduction of evidence wholly untainted by the police 
misconduct" [citation omitted]).  
                     
 
18 The record indicates that Estabrook made incriminating 
statements in the interview after Frost twice told him that he 
knew Estabrook was in the house when the shooting occurred.  
However, what Frost told Estabrook was not, in our view, an 
exploitation of Bradley's tainted CSLI.  It is more likely that 
Frost's statement that Estabrook was at the scene of the 
shooting was derived from Estabrook's appearance at the hospital 
right after the shooting, in attire substantially matching that 
of the second intruder, and from Estabrook's statement to his 
treatment providers that he had been hit with a tea kettle.  All 
that Bradley's CSLI did, after all, was locate his cellular 
telephone and its user -- whether Bradley or Estabrook -- within 
three miles of the victim's home in Billerica; the CSLI did not 
place the telephone in the house itself.    
 
19 
 
d.  Bradley's interview on September 27.  Frost and DeLucia 
interviewed Bradley again on September 27, 2012, following their 
postarrest interview of Estabrook.19  As he had on August 2, 
Bradley denied involvement in the shooting, and stated 
repeatedly that Estabrook had informed him of the shooting 
incident.  Specifically, Bradley said that Estabrook told him 
that he, Estabrook, had been hit in the head with a pot; that 
another individual, Gabriel Arias, shot the victim; and that a 
third individual, Peter Bin, also was present in the house for 
the shooting.  Bradley said that, according to Estabrook, Bin 
carried a .45 caliber pistol and Arias had a nine millimeter 
handgun during the home invasion.   
 
Suppression of these statements is not required.  
Throughout this interview, Frost and DeLucia confronted Bradley 
with information they had just learned from Estabrook, 
independently of the CSLI.20  To the extent the police told 
Bradley during the interview that they knew he was involved in 
the shooting, their questions and statements made clear that 
they had obtained this information through Estabrook's untainted 
                     
 
19 At the time of this interview, Bradley was also under 
arrest, but in connection with an unrelated matter.   
 
 
20 During the interview the investigators asked Bradley who 
had his telephone on the night of the shooting and told him that 
his "phone was in Billerica."  As discussed infra, Bradley's 
responses to these questions are inadmissible.     
 
20 
 
confession and other independent sources, rather than by 
exploiting the CSLI.21  
 
 
Although the defendants challenge the admissibility of all 
their statements as tainted by the previously obtained CSLI for 
Bradley's cellular telephone.  We have rejected that approach.  
Rather, we have focused primarily on the statements that were 
included in the affidavit and that support probable cause 
independent of the earlier, unlawfully obtained CSLI.  The 
motion judge relied on Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603-604 
(1975), to conclude that none of the statements of Estabrook or 
Bradley needed to be suppressed because they were sufficiently 
attenuated from the illegal search of Bradley's CSLI.  We agree 
with the judge insofar as her decision applies to Estabrook's 
statements, because we are persuaded that none of his statements 
was the product of the police confronting him with evidence of 
                     
 
21 Furthermore, we are not persuaded by Bradley's contention 
that his September 27 statements must be suppressed under the 
"cat-out-of-the-bag" rule.  See Commonwealth v. Mahnke, 368 
Mass. 662, 686 (1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 959 (1976) ("The 
cat-out-of-the-bag line of analysis requires the exclusion of a 
statement if, in giving the statement, the defendant was 
motivated by the belief that, after a prior coerced statement, 
his effort to withhold further information would be futile and 
he had nothing to lose by repetition or amplification of the 
earlier statements").  We have concluded that the bulk of 
Bradley's statements in his first interview on August 2 are 
admissible.  In any event, Bradley's statements in the August 2 
interview did not include any sort of admission of guilt or 
indication that Bradley knew about the details of the shooting. 
In the circumstances, there was no reason for Bradley to think, 
based on his statements of August 2 that it would be "futile" to 
withhold details of the shooting on September 27.   
21 
 
Bradley's CSLI.  Certain of Bradley's statements are another 
matter.  At times during their interviews of Bradley, and 
particularly in the August 2 interview, the police officers 
asked questions based directly on the tainted CSLI.  The 
Commonwealth argues that all of Bradley's statements, including 
the responses to direct CSLI challenges, are admissible because, 
like Estabrook's, they were attenuated from the initial illegal 
search of the CSLI.  We disagree.  Even though the Commonwealth 
requested Bradley's CSLI on July 25 and obtained it on July 31, 
Bradley was not confronted with any question based on his CSLI 
until he was interviewed on August 2 and September 27.22  Thus, 
the circumstances here are materially different from cases, 
relied upon by the Commonwealth, in which a defendant's 
statements made hours after he was illegally arrested or after 
his home was illegally searched -- and, thus, made hours after 
he became aware of the arrest or the search -- were too 
attenuated from the arrest to be suppressed.  See Commonwealth 
v. Sylvia, 380 Mass. 180, 183-185 (1980), citing Commonwealth v. 
Fielding, 371 Mass. 97, 113-114 (1976).  Insofar as Bradley is 
concerned, his statements in direct response to confrontation 
with evidence of his CSLI were made in close proximity to the 
                     
 
22 The Commonwealth's access to Bradley's CSLI prior to 
these interviews had been without his knowledge:  the § 2703(d) 
order pertaining to Bradley's CSLI explicitly prohibited 
disclosing it to him.  
22 
 
illegality, and there were no intervening circumstances between 
the police questions based on the CSLI and Bradley's responses 
thereto.  See Commonwealth v. Damiano, 444 Mass. 444, 456 
(2005).  The statements must be suppressed.  See Commonwealth v. 
Keefner, 461 Mass. 507, 518 (2012) (direct product of unlawful 
search must be suppressed); Commonwealth v. Porter P., 456 Mass. 
254, 275 (2010) (suppression required of juvenile's statement 
about gun, made immediately after search of juvenile's room, and 
juvenile's removal from room; statement was not so distant in 
time from illegal search to dissipate taint).  We now turn to 
the CSLI itself, which was the subject of the 2013 search 
warrant.   
 
4.  Search warrant for CSLI.  Even though the exclusionary 
rule generally bars from admission evidence "obtained during an 
illegal search as fruit of the poisonous tree, evidence 
initially discovered as a consequence of an unlawful search may 
be admissible if later acquired independently by lawful means 
untainted by the initial illegality" (quotation omitted).  
Commonwealth v. DeJesus, 439 Mass. 616, 624 (2003).  Accord 
Commonwealth v. Frodyma, 393 Mass. 438, 441 (1984); Commonwealth 
v. Benoit, 382 Mass. 210, 216-217 (1981), S.C., 389 Mass. 411 
(1983).  See Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 443 (1984); United 
States v. Silvestri, 787 F.2d 736, 740 (1st Cir. 1986), cert. 
denied, 487 U.S. 1233 (1988).  Accordingly, the appropriate 
23 
 
inquiry here is whether, given the "primary illegality" of the 
Commonwealth's access to Bradley's CSLI pursuant to a § 2703(d) 
order, the 2013 search warrant for the same CSLI was secured "by 
exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently 
distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint."  See 
Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 392 
(1920); Frodyma, supra, quoting Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 488; 
Commonwealth v. Forbes, 85 Mass. App. Ct. 168, 176 (2014).  See 
generally J.A. Grasso, Jr., & C.M. McEvoy, Suppression Matters 
Under Massachusetts Law § 20-3[a], at 20-10 (2014).  The 
Commonwealth bears the burden of showing by a preponderance of 
the evidence the absence of taint, i.e., that the Commonwealth 
obtained information supplying the requisite probable cause 
through an independent source.23  See Commonwealth v. Fredette, 
396 Mass. 455, 459 (1985).   
                     
 
23 The defendants urge this court to require the 
Commonwealth to establish an independent source by clear and 
convincing evidence.  They note that the clear and convincing 
evidence standard governs circumstances in which the 
Commonwealth seeks to establish that a witness's in-court 
identification is derived from a source independent of a prior 
suppressed identification.  See Commonwealth v. Bell, 356 Mass. 
724, 724-725 (1969).  The independent source rule applied in 
this case, however, is more akin to the inevitable discovery 
rule, to which we have applied the preponderance of the evidence 
standard.  See Commonwealth v. O'Connor, 406 Mass. 112, 117 
(1989) ("the Commonwealth has the burden of proving the facts 
bearing on inevitability by a preponderance of the evidence").  
See also Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444 (1984) (rationale of 
independent source rule is "wholly consistent" with inevitable 
discovery rule); Commonwealth v. Benoit, 382 Mass. 210, 217 
24 
 
 
It is well settled that the court looks to the "four 
corners of the affidavit" to determine whether a search warrant 
application establishes probable cause.  See, e.g., Commonwealth 
v. O'Day, 440 Mass. 296, 297 (2003), quoting Commonwealth v. 
Villella, 39 Mass. App. Ct. 426, 428 (1995).  The defendants 
concede that on its face Frost's affidavit filed in support of 
the warrant established probable cause to search Bradley’s CSLI. 
They argue, however, that, contrary to the determination of the 
motion judge, much of the information set forth in the affidavit 
was obtained as a result of Bradley's unlawfully obtained CSLI.  
Accordingly, our task in evaluating the defendants' claim is to 
determine whether there are enough facts in the affidavit 
traceable to sources independent of the illegally obtained CSLI 
to establish probable cause for the search warrant.  See 
Commonwealth v. Tyree, 455 Mass. 676, 692 (2010) (evidence 
obtained during search pursuant to warrant obtained after 
illegal entry would be admissible if search warrant affidavit 
contained information supplying probable cause obtained from 
independent, untainted source).  Cf. Commonwealth v. Long, 454 
Mass. 542, 552-553 (2009) (under Franks v. Delaware, 430 U.S. 
154 [1978], where defendant shows affidavit supporting warrant 
                                                                  
(1981), S.C., 389 Mass. 411 (1983) (inevitable discovery rule is 
extension of independent source doctrine).  We decline the 
defendants' invitation to apply the clear and convincing 
evidence standard here.  
 
25 
 
includes affirmative misstatement, judge considers whether 
"affidavit purged of false material, establishes probable 
cause").  Cf. also Commonwealth v. James, 620 Pa. 465, 481 
(2013) (court may look beyond affidavit supporting search 
warrant where objective of inquiry is "to determine whether a 
fact in the affidavit would be included or stricken when 
determining probable cause"). 
 
Frost's affidavit describes the following:  an eyewitness 
account (provided by the victim's brother) of the shooting; 
police investigation into drug distribution from the victim's 
home and into the ultimate supplier of these drugs; 
identification of Bradley as a suspect and obtaining his call 
logs through an administrative subpoena; Bradley's statement 
giving Estabrook's name to police on August 2; Estabrook's 
statement on August 15, regarding his treatment at an area 
hospital in the early morning of the shooting, and review of his 
hospital record; Estabrook's statement on September 27, 
implicating himself and Bradley in the shooting; Marshall's 
grand jury testimony implicating Bradley in the robbery scheme; 
and forensic evidence linking Bradley to the shooting.  Frost 
avers in his affidavit that he "specifically avoided" including 
information obtained pursuant to the § 2703(d) orders in 
delineating this evidence.  Our review of the record persuades 
us that Frost succeeded in doing so.   
26 
 
 
The following information included in the affidavit was 
gathered before the Commonwealth initially obtained Bradley's 
CSLI without a search warrant, and therefore by definition was 
discovered independently of it.  At approximately 3:55 A.M. on 
July 7, the victim was shot in his home.  The victim's brother, 
who witnessed the shooting, told the police that three to four 
masked men in their early twenties had entered the home by 
kicking in a door to the kitchen; two of these intruders had 
firearms.  One of them, the first intruder, was a white male 
with blue eyes and blonde hair.  He was carrying a nine 
millimeter handgun, and ordered the victim and his brother to 
"get down on the ground."  The victim refused, and hit the 
second intruder with a tea kettle.  The second intruder was a 
heavyset white male dressed in a red shirt and black shorts with 
blue stripes.  While the victim struggled with the second 
intruder, the first intruder, and perhaps another intruder as 
well, shot the victim.  The intruders left the scene in a small 
sedan; the victim later died of a gunshot wound to the head.    
 
When police executed a search warrant for the victim's 
residence that same day, they found more than $10,000 in cash in 
the victim's bedroom, more than one pound of marijuana, and what 
appeared to be drug ledgers.  On July 10, 2012, Cappello told 
Frost and DeLucia that he lived with the victim, and that he 
regularly purchased and distributed marijuana.  He also said 
27 
 
that he had purchased multiple pounds of marijuana from a 
supplier in Lynn named Ashley in the past, but that he had not 
done so since May, 2012, because when he last purchased 
marijuana from Ashley she was accompanied by a "scary" man 
introduced to him as the "thug."  According to Cappello, the 
"thug" had many tattoos, including one on the back of his head 
that read "LYNN, MASS."  Cappello believed that the "thug" 
provided security to Ashley's boy friend.   
 
Frost and DeLucia obtained Ashley's telephone number from 
Cappello, and investigators learned through further 
investigation that "Ashley" was Ashley Marshall, and the "thug" 
was Bradley, who has a "LYNN, MASS" tattoo on the back of his 
head.  Bradley's race and blue eyes were consistent with the 
description of the first intruder, and his probation record 
revealed a history of charges involving violence and firearms.  
During the police investigation, the district attorney's office 
obtained through administrative subpoenas call logs associated 
with the cellular telephones of Bradley, Bin, and Marshall.24  
These records revealed that at various intervals between 8 P.M. 
                     
24 The defendants do not challenge the Commonwealth's 
obtaining or use of these records.  
 
28 
 
on July 6 and 6 A.M. on July 7, these individuals were in 
regular contact with one another.25   
 
On July 25, the Commonwealth requested and obtained 
§ 2703(d) orders, and as a result received the CSLI of Bradley 
and others soon thereafter.  (See notes 5 & 14, supra.)  The 
lettered list that follows summarizes information contained in 
Frost's affidavit that was obtained by the police after they had 
received Bradley's CSLI, but without exploiting the tainted 
CSLI.26  See Frodyma, 393 Mass. at 442.   
 
a.  Bradley's interview with Frost and DeLucia on August 2.  
Bradley admitted to knowing Marshall and her boy friend, and 
stated that Estabrook occasionally used his cellular telephone.   
                     
 
25 According to the affidavit, the telephone calls between 
Bradley's telephone and Marshall's telephone included the 
following:  seven calls between 8:42 P.M. and 11:58 P.M. on 
July 6; four calls around the time of the shooting, from 3:50 
A.M. to 3:58 A.M. on July 7; and six calls between 4:34 A.M. and 
5:18 A.M.  Bin and Gabriel Arias also exchanged telephone calls 
moments before the shooting occurred, and a call was placed from 
Bradley's telephone to Bin's telephone at 3:59 A.M. 
 
 
26 Although the discovery of certain information before the 
illegal search of Bradley's CSLI is sufficient to establish that 
information's independence from the illegality, see Commonwealth 
v. Frodyma, 393 Mass. 438, 441-442 (1984), the Commonwealth also 
may rely on evidence obtained after the illegal search if it can 
show that the evidence was independently obtained.  Holding 
otherwise would contravene "the principle of the independent 
source doctrine that 'the interest of society in deterring 
unlawful police conduct and the public interest in having juries 
receive all probative evidence of a crime are properly balanced 
by putting the police in the same, not a worse, position [than] 
they would have been in if no police error or misconduct had 
occurred'".  See id. at 443, quoting Nix, 467 U.S. at 443. 
 
29 
 
b.  Frost's August 15 interview of Estabrook.  Estabrook 
volunteered that on the night of the shooting he had dislocated 
his shoulder at a party in Salem and had been treated at Salem 
Hospital at 4:15 A.M. -- a time that was shortly after the 
shooting had occurred.  The hospital's surveillance videotape 
revealed that Estabrook appeared in the hospital lobby at 
approximately 5:15 A.M. on July 7, wearing a red T-shirt and 
black shorts, consistent with the description of the second 
intruder except for the lack of stripes on the shorts.  Medical 
records, obtained from the hospital through a grand jury 
subpoena, indicated that Estabrook was admitted at approximately 
5:20 A.M., on July 7, and that he told those treating him that 
he had been "hit in the head with a tea kettle."   
c.  Estabrook's recorded interview with Frost and DeLucia 
on September 27.  He told the investigators that the robbery of 
the victim was Bradley's idea, and that Bradley had lured him 
into the robbery scheme with the promise that they could steal 
some $40,000 from the victim.  He also identified other 
individuals involved in the crimes, including Bin, Arias, Steven 
Touch, and Sophan Keo.  Further, he stated that the group 
entered the victim's home with two firearms -- a nine millimeter 
handgun and a .45 caliber pistol; that while Bradley, Keo, and 
Touch waited outside, he, Arias, and Bin entered the home where 
Arias shot the victim in the head; that members of the group who 
30 
 
had been wearing latex gloves discarded the gloves as they fled 
the scene; and that later that morning, Estabrook, Bradley, Bin, 
Touch, and Arias met and urged one another to keep the details 
of the shooting a secret from the authorities.   
d.  The November 15, 2012, grand jury testimony of 
Marshall, who had been granted immunity.27  Marshall stated that 
Bradley had asked her a few weeks before the shooting for a 
target to rob; that, on the evening of July 6, she suggested 
that he rob Cappello and showed Bradley photographs of what she 
believed to be Cappello's home; and that Bradley then left with 
a group of Asian males.28  When Bradley spoke to Marshall one or 
two weeks after the incident, he denied having entered the 
victim's home himself, but told her that other individuals had 
done so, and said words to the effect of, "What's done is done."    
 
e.  Details concerning a latex glove.  On the day of the 
shooting police found a latex glove on a road approximately one 
quarter mile from the victim's home, and determined that Bradley 
                     
 
27 Bradley argues that Marshall's grand jury testimony is 
tainted by the CSLI because, he contends, Marshall was given 
immunity on account of the fact that her own illegally obtained 
CSLI showed she was not in or near Billerica at the time of the 
shooting.  Bradley has no standing to challenge Marshall's grand 
jury testimony, and in any event, his argument is based on pure 
speculation:  the record offers no basis on which to reach any 
conclusion about why Marshall was granted immunity.   
 
 
28 According to Frost's affidavit, Steven Touch, Bin, and 
Sophan Keo are Asian males. 
 
31 
 
was a potential contributor to the glove's deoxyribonucleic acid 
(DNA) profile, and that the chances of the DNA of a randomly 
selected Caucasian male matching the DNA profile of the glove 
was 1 in 1.875 quadrillion.  In addition, the glove contained 
gunshot residue, indicating that the person wearing the glove 
fired a gun or was near a gun at the time it was fired.   
 
An affidavit in support of a search warrant for CSLI must 
demonstrate "probable cause to believe [1] 'that a particularly 
described offense has been, is being, or is about to be 
committed, and [2] that [the CSLI being sought] will produce 
evidence of such offense or will aid in the apprehension of a 
person who the applicant has probable cause to believe has 
committed, is committing, or is about to commit such offense.'"  
Augustine, 467 Mass. at 256, quoting Commonwealth v. Connolly, 
454 Mass. 808, 825 (2009).  The information just summarized, all 
contained in Frost's affidavit and all of which had a source 
separate and apart from the tainted CSLI, meets this two-pronged 
test.  As to the first prong, certainly the affidavit supplies 
probable cause to believe that the criminal offenses of murder 
and home invasion, among others, were committed at the victim's 
home, given that the victim's brother witnessed the incident and 
Estabrook confessed to details of the crimes.  With respect to 
the second prong, the independently obtained facts in Frost's 
affidavit (including Estabrook's September 27 statements to the 
32 
 
police detailing his and Bradley's involvement, and Bradley's 
DNA on the latex glove) provide probable cause to believe that 
Bradley and Estabrook were part of the group who perpetrated the 
home invasion and murder of the victim.  Accordingly, the 
affidavit establishes probable cause to believe that the CSLI 
would "produce evidence" of these offenses by indicating whether 
Bradley's cellular telephone, which also may have been used by 
Estabrook, was located near the victim's home on the night of 
the shooting and, therefore, whether Bradley (or Estabrook) was 
in the area of the shooting when it occurred.  Given that the 
2013 search warrants for the CSLI were supported by probable 
cause based on evidence independent of the illegally obtained 
CSLI, suppression of evidence relating to Bradley's CSLI is not 
warranted.  See Frodyma, 393 Mass. at 440-441.    
Conclusion.  The order of the Superior Court is affirmed 
with respect to the denial of the defendants' motions to 
suppress evidence of Bradley's CSLI.  The order is vacated with 
respect to the denial of the defendants' motions to suppress all 
statements, and the case is remanded to the Superior Court for 
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.