Case Title: Vermont v. Simmons

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2010-066

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 2011-06-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
2011 VT 69













State v. Simmons (2010-066)
 
2011 VT 69
 
[Filed 23-Jun-2011]
 
NOTICE:  This opinion is
subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision
before publication in the Vermont Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme Court, 109
State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of any errors in order that
corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.
 
 
2011 VT 69
 
No. 2010-066
 
State of Vermont
Supreme Court
 
 
 
On Appeal from
     v.
District Court of Vermont,
 
Unit No. 1, Windham Circuit
 
 
Graham Simmons
November Term, 2010
 
 
 
 
Katherine
  A. Hayes, J. (motion to suppress); Karen R. Carroll, J. (final judgment)
 
David W. Gartenstein,  Windham County Deputy State's Attorney, and Eric W. Gentino, 
  Law Clerk (On the Brief), Brattleboro, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
 
Allison N. Fulcher of Martin & Associates, Barre, for
Defendant-Appellant.
 
 
PRESENT:  Reiber, C.J.,
Dooley, Johnson, Skoglund and Burgess, JJ.
 
 
¶ 1.            
BURGESS, J.   Defendant Graham Simmons appeals from the
Windham District Court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence of a
purloined computer and other stolen items discovered in the execution of a
search warrant at his residence.  Probable cause supporting the warrant
was obtained through inquest subpoenas requiring production of internet
addresses and indentifying data from internet service
providers.  Defendant challenges the subpoena of internet records as a
warrantless search in violation of Chapter I, Article 11 of the Vermont
Constitution, and also complains that the warrant was invalidly based on
information from an unknown tipster whose reliability was not reasonably
established.  We note that defendant failed to properly preserve the first
point and hold that the trial court's refusal to suppress was not plain
error.  We also determine that the informant's input and credibility was
ultimately irrelevant to issuing the warrant.  Accordingly, the judgment
is affirmed.
¶ 2.            
In 2008, two of defendant's neighbors on Hi Lo Biddy Road in Putney
reported break-ins and stolen property, including two laptop computers.  A
State Police detective received a tip from an anonymous informant that a man
named "Graham," who lived on the same street as the victims, had one of the
computers and was using it to access his neighbor's wireless internet
network.  The detective looked through public records and learned that one
Graham Simmons with previous larceny and fraud convictions lived on Hi Lo Biddy
Road.  The detective also learned from defendant's next door neighborone
of the break-in victimsthat she subscribed to Verizon internet services and
had a wireless network in her home for her personal use.
¶ 3.            
The detective looked for defendant on the social networking website
MySpace.com and located a MySpace profile for a "Graham Simmons" living in
Putney, accompanied by a picture resembling the photograph of defendant on
record with the Department of Motor Vehicles.  The detective then served
an inquest subpoena[1]
on MySpace to obtain defendant's internet protocol (IP) addressa code
identifying the computer network from which defendant accessed his MySpace
account.  The records from MySpace indicated that shortly after
defendant's neighbor's computer was stolen, defendant logged onto his MySpace
account more than 100 times over the course of a week.  Each log on
originated from the same IP address, identified as a Verizon internet service
address.
¶ 4.            
The detective secured another inquest subpoena, this time for Verizon's
records concerning the same IP address.  Verizon disclosed records indicating that the only person authorized to use the
internet connection identified by that IP address was defendant's
neighbor, mentioned above.  Though the neighbor had not given defendant
permission to use her Verizon wireless connection, defendant had clearly done
so.   
¶ 5.            
Based on this evidence of unauthorized network access in apparent
violation of 13 V.S.A. § 4102 (criminalizing knowing and intentional
unauthorized access to computer networks and systems), the detective applied
for and was issued a warrant to search for computers at defendant's Hi Lo Biddy
Road address.  The resulting search turned up a laptop computer
with a serial number matching the laptop stolen from the neighbor's
residence.  The police also noted that several other objects in plain view
resembled other items reported as stolen from defendant's neighbors. 
Based on these observations, the police secured defendant's residence while the
detective obtained another search warrant to seize the other suspected stolen
property.  During the second search, the police found a small bag of
marijuana.  After his arrest, defendant admitted that he burglarized two
of his neighbors' residences and accessed the internet using his neighbor's
wireless signal without permission.  Defendant was charged with four
counts of burglary under 13 V.S.A. § 1201(a), possession of marijuana under 18
V.S.A. § 4230(a)(1), and unauthorized access to a
network under 13 V.S.A. § 4102.
¶ 6.            
Defendant moved to suppress the evidence.  Contending that the IP
address was private information, defendant argued that issuing subpoenas to
MySpace and Verizon without probable cause was an invalid search in violation
of the Fourth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and of Chapter 1, Article
11 of the Vermont Constitution.  Defendant claimed the subpoenas allowed
essentially a warrantless search of his home in violation of his reasonable
expectation of privacy, which he analogized to a warrantless search of his
unopened mail.  As we understand his point below, defendant maintained
that probable cause for the warrants to physically search his house was derived
from information obtained unconstitutionally from MySpace and Verizon. 
Thus the evidence gathered from those searches must be excluded as fruit of the
poisonous tree under Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963).
¶ 7.            
The trial court denied the motion, concluding that defendant enjoyed no
reasonable expectation of privacy in the subpoenaed information.  The
court found that the
MySpace privacy policy, posted online, plainly declared that its account
information could be disclosed as it deemed necessary "to respond to a subpoena . . . whether or not a response is
required by applicable law."  The court also noted that the MySpace
records were limited to the IP address and time-of-use data.
¶ 8.            
Applying settled Fourth Amendment precedent, the court agreed with the
ruling in United States v. D'Andrea, 497 F. Supp. 2d 117, 120 (D. Mass. 2007)[2]
that "internet users have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their
subscriber information, the length of their stored files, and other noncontent data to which service providers must have
access."  Regarding the Verizon records that identified the IP address as
belonging to defendant's neighbor, the court observed that defendant had no
privacy interest in his neighbor's internet account.
¶ 9.            
Defendant's remaining argument on appeal is that suppression should have
been granted because the State's subpoena to MySpace violated the state
constitutional guarantees against warrantless searches in Article 11.[3]  This argument is unavailing. 
First, defendant failed to properly preserve his state constitutional claim
below.  Second, the trial court did not commit plain error in denying the
motionit properly concluded that Vermont's Constitution affords no privacy
protection in an internet service provider's subscriber address or use
information disclosing noncontent data.[4]  Concerning the claimed inadequacy
of the informant's reliability, probable cause for the warrants did not depend
on the tip.  Accordingly, we affirm.
¶ 10.         This
court has consistently held that "it is the duty of the advocate to raise State
constitutional issues, where appropriate, at the trial level."  State v. Jewett, 146 Vt. 221, 229, 500 A.2d 233, 238 (1985). 
We considered a similar preservation question in State v. Maguire, where
the defendant merely cited Article 11 in the introductory paragraph of a
memorandum in support of his motion to suppress, but presented no analysis or
application of that provision.  146 Vt. 49, 54, 498 A.2d 1028, 1031 (1985).  Though the parties in Maguire stipulated
that defendant's motions below raised a constitutional question, we still
declined to address the issue on appeal because defendant offered "no analysis
of the Vermont Constitution in comparison with the Federal Constitution and no
showing of extraordinary circumstances that would justify our addressing this
issue for the first time on appeal."  Id.
¶ 11.         Aside
from a bald assertion that the evidence should be suppressed "pursuant to . . . the Vermont Constitution, Chapter 1,
Article 11," defendant proffered no particular argument or analysis to the
trial court as to why this should be so.  Defendant correctly points out
in his brief to this Court that Article 11 has been found to surpass
protections afforded under the  Fourth Amendment
to the United States Constituation; however, he
advanced no reason for expanded protection at the trial court.  Nor does
defendant demonstrate any extraordinary circumstances to prompt divergence from
the customary consequence of nonpreservation of
matters not raised below.  See State v. Hunt, 150 Vt. 483, 494-95,
555 A.2d 369, 376-77 (1988) (holding that defendant's Article 11 claims, while
fully briefed on appeal, were not preserved when not argued below, and no
extraordinary circumstances justified appellate review of issues not first
addressed to the trial court).  Thus, defendant waived his Article 11
argument.
¶ 12.         Despite
defendant's failure to preserve his constitutional claim, we examine the claim
for "plain error" in the court's ruling.  See State
v. Yoh, 2006 VT 49A, ¶ 36, 180 Vt. 317, 910 A.2d 853 (noting that when issue has been forfeited by failure to raise it below,
Court may only consider it under plain error).  Plain error lies
"only in those rare and extraordinary cases where the error is both obvious and
strikes at the very heart of the defendant's constitutional rights or results
in a miscarriage of justice if we do not recognize it."  State v. Campbell, 146 Vt. 25, 27, 497 A.2d 375, 377 (1985). 
There was no such obvious and fundamental error here.
¶ 13.         As
conceded by defendant, Federal courts consistently refuse to extend Fourth
Amendment protection to noncontent internet
identification and account data.  See United States v. Perrine, 518 F.3d 1196, 1204 (10th Cir. 2008) (noting that "[e]very federal court to address
this issue has held that subscriber information provided to an internet
provider is not protected by the Fourth Amendment's privacy expectation"); cf. Smith
v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 745-46 (1979) (holding, in the context of
telephonic technology, that defendant had no expectation of privacy in pen
register listing phone numbers dialed from his phone). 
¶ 14.         Nothing
in our Article 11 rulings suggest that an internet subscriber address and
frequency of use data, unembellished by any personal information, should be
treated as private.  Article 11 declares that "the people have a right to
hold themselves, their houses, papers, and possessions, free from search and
seizure."  Vt. Const. ch. 1,
art. 11.  Absent exigent circumstances not at issue here, Article
11 prohibits a warrantless search of "only those areas or activities that a
reasonable person would conclude are intended to be private."  State v. Geraw, 173 Vt. 350, 352,
795 A.2d 1219, 1221 (2002).
¶ 15.         "Under
Article 11, the question of whether an individual has a legitimate expectation
of privacy hinges on the essence of underlying constitutional valuesincluding
respect for both private, subjective expectations and public
norms."  State v. Bryant, 2008 VT 39, ¶ 11, 183 Vt. 355, 950 A.2d 467 (quotation omitted).  "[I]n order to invoke Article 11 protection, a
person must exhibit[] an actual (subjective)
expectation of privacy . . . that society is prepared to recognize as
reasonable.' " Id. (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347,
361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring)).  Given the necessary and willing
exposure of an internet user's 
access point identification and frequency of use to third party internet
service providers, such information cannot reasonably be considered
confidential, especially when a provider such as MySpace openly declares a
policy of disclosure.  The information appears no more private than a
phone number and the number of calls made, or a street address or post office
box and volume of mail, neither of which could plausibly be considered private.
¶ 16.         Though
Article 11 can afford greater protection against warrantless searches than is
sometimes accorded by the Fourth Amendment, defendant presents no compelling
reason to depart from federal case law as applied by the trial court in this
instance.  No "intimate details" of defendant's personal "activities,
behavior, habits, and lifestyles" were shown to be at stake as in State v.
Morris, where Article 11 protection was extended to closed trash bags that
would have been subject to warrantless search under the Fourth Amendment. 
165 Vt. 111, 116, 680 A.2d 90, 94 (1996).  Nor
are other circumstances put forth meriting distinction from federal law on this
topic.  Cf., e.g., State v. Neil, 2008 VT 79, ¶¶ 12, 15, 184 Vt.
243, 958 A.2d 1173 (limiting warrantless search otherwise permitted under
Fourth Amendment, of closed container seized incident to arrest, where there
are no exigent circumstances beyond the immediate fact of arrest); State v. Savva, 159 Vt. 75, 91, 616 A.2d 774, 783 (1991)
(rejecting the per se "automobile exception" to the Fourth Amendment, and
requiring a warrant under Article 11 to search a closed container within a
vehicle stopped by police if time and circumstances reasonably allow for
warrant to be obtained); State v. Kirchoff,
156 Vt. 1, 14, 587 A.2d 988, 996  (1991) (holding open fields, subject to
warrantless search under Federal precedent, protected under Article 11 if
posted against trespass).  Defendant's analogies to a warrantless search
of his home or mail are also unavailing.  Such intrusions are incomparable
to requesting and receiving, from a third party service provider, an IP address
and the number of times the access was used.[5]  
¶ 17.         Lastly,
we need not tarry long on the issue of the anonymous informant.
 Defendant's claim that the state needed to substantiate the tipster's
reliability for purposes of probable cause is unfounded.  It is evident
that the tip only initiated the detective's inquiry into defendant's identity
from public records and his published MySpace profile, which led, in turn, to
the MySpace inquest subpoena seeking an IP address.  None of these
investigative steps required warrants or probable cause.  See, e.g., 13 V.S.A. § 5131.  As found by the trial
court, the warrant application was supported by probable cause supplied from
the records obtained from MySpace and Verizon, the neighbor's evidence and the
detective's background information on illicit wireless access.  Given the
rest of this evidence and information, the informant's reliability and the
provenance of his tip was irrelevant to probable cause for the warrant.          
Affirmed.
 
 
FOR THE COURT:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Associate
  Justice
 

[1] 
13 V.S.A. § 5131 provides that "[u]pon the written
application of the state's attorney, a judge of the superior court may
institute and conduct an inquest upon any criminal matter under investigation
by the state's attorney."  In furtherance of the inquest, the "judge may
issue necessary process to bring witnesses before [the court] to give evidence
in any matter there under investigation."  13 V.S.A. §
5132.
[2] 
After the trial court's ruling, this decision was vacated by United States
v. D'Andrea, ___ F.3d ___ (1st Cir.
2011).
 
[3] 
Defendant argues no Fourth Amendment violation now, and does not challenge the
legality, under the state or Federal Constitution, of the subpoenaed production
of Verizon records disclosing the ownership of the IP address as an independent
violation of his privacy, except as a "tainted fruit" of the Myspace search.  State v. Pitts, 2009 VT 51, ¶
21, 186 Vt. 71, 978 A.2d 14 (quotation omitted).  Further, defendant
concedes here that Federal courts, so far, decline to recognize a protected
Fourth Amendment privacy interest in the service provider information at issue
in this case.
 
[4] 
"Noncontent data" in this context is defined as data
that does not include information concerning the substance of internet
communications.  Cf. 18 U.S.C. § 2510(8) (Under Federal law, " [c]ontents', when used with
respect to any wire, oral, or electronic communication, includes any information
concerning the substance, purport, or meaning of that communication.").
[5]  We note that in the most analogous
state decision, a case concerning internet subscriber information, an Oregon
court reached the same conclusion under its state constitution, albeit for
different reason from our holding here.  That court ruled that, where a
third party lawfully possesses "noncontent
information . . . regarding [an individual's] Internet usage," such information
is not protected under the state's constitution.  State
v. Delp, 178 P.3d 259, 264-65 (Or. App. 2008).
 
Conversely, the New Jersey
Supreme Court has ruled that a subscriber's name associated with an IP address
is confidential, but for reasons undeveloped, or simply inapplicable,
here.  See State v. Reid, 945 A.2d 26 (N.J.
2008).  The Reid decision was based, in part, on prior
recognition of state constitutional privacy rights in matters disclosed to
third parties, such as banks and telephone exchanges, whereas no such history
precedes the instant case.  Id. at 32-33.  Moreover, despite
the privacy retained in internet user identification, the Reid court
opined that such information was still obtainable by police through properly
issued subpoenas, rather than warrants based on probable cause.  Id. at 36.  Concerned with issues not raised
here, Reid is ultimately irrelevant to our inquiry.