Opinion ID: 4541787
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Investigation and Indictments

Text: The following facts are undisputed. Following a tip from a cooperating witness (CW), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) began investigating defendant Nia Moore-Bush in January 2017 for the unlicensed sale of firearms. About a month into the investigation, in February 2017, Moore-Bush and her then-boyfriend, later-husband, Dinelson Dinzey moved in with Moore-Bush's mother, defendant Daphne Moore, at 120 Hadley - 5 - Street in Springfield, Massachusetts, in a quiet residential neighborhood. At the time, Moore was a lawyer and Assistant Clerk Magistrate for the Hampden County, Massachusetts, Superior Court. Moore-Bush and Dinzey lived at the property off and on for the period relevant to this appeal. The government had evidence that 120 Hadley Street, Moore's property, was the site of illegal activity even before installation of the pole camera. For example, on May 5, 2017, the CW, acting on the government's orders, wore a recording device and purchased four guns illegally from Moore-Bush, through Dinzey, at that location. Approximately two weeks later, on or about May 17, 2017, ATF installed a camera towards the top of the public utility pole across the public street from the unfenced-in house at 120 Hadley Street (the pole camera). The record is silent as to whether the camera was visible. The camera was used until mid-January 2018, when Moore-Bush and Dinzey were arrested. Investigators did not seek any judicial authorization to install the pole camera and did not need to do so under the law at that time in May of 2017. The images from the pole camera captured one side of the front of Moore's house. The camera did not capture the house's front door; it did show the area immediately in front of the side door, the attached garage, the driveway to the garage, part of the lawn, and a portion of the public street in front of the house. A tree in - 6 - the front yard, when it had leaves, partially obstructed the camera's view. The government also from time to time had investigators conduct physical surveillance of these same areas, and presumably more areas, from the public street. Those surveillance officers could see everything the pole camera could see, and even more. The tree, when it had leaves, did not obstruct their view. The record is silent as to whether the officers on the street used cameras, binoculars, or the like, but during physical surveillance they were often close enough to observe and record license plate numbers of vehicles in the driveway. The district court declined to hold an evidentiary hearing on the technical capabilities of the pole camera; nonetheless, the following is established by the record. The pole camera operated 24/7. Officers could access the video feed either live or via recordings. When they were watching the pole camera's live stream, but only then, officers could control the camera's zoom, pan, and tilt features remotely, akin to what an observer on the street could see with or without visual aids. The zoom feature was powerful enough for officers observing live to read the license plates on cars parked in the driveway. The camera's resolution was much lower at night in the darkness. Regardless of the zoom feature, the pole camera could not capture anything happening inside of the house. Everything it captured was visible to a - 7 - passerby on the street. The pole camera did not and could not capture audio, and so captured no sound, even sounds which could be heard on the street. The record does not indicate what the pole camera looked like or its manufacturer. The camera did not cover or capture all aspects of life at 120 Hadley Street. According to an affidavit from a government investigator appended to one of the wiretap applications, the pole camera footage was only of limited use because it captured just a portion of the front of the house, was partially obstructed by a tree, and had to be monitored live in order to use the zoom feature to see faces, license plates, and other details clearly. The government used different investigative tools over time to investigate Moore-Bush and those thought to be coconspirators at this location, including using a CW and having officers conduct physical surveillance of the property. Warrants were obtained, based in part on the pole camera evidence. Pursuant to warrants, law enforcement tracked suspects' locations using cell phone location data. Pursuant to warrants, investigators mounted GPS trackers on suspects' vehicles. Pursuant to a warrant, officers searched the private contents of Dinzey's Facebook account. Pursuant to court orders, officers installed pen registers and trap and trace devices on several cell phones. They received judicial authorization to wiretap several phones. They also listened to consensually recorded jail calls made by Moore's - 8 - long-time romantic partner, who they believed was also involved in illegal activities; looked through discarded trash; and subpoenaed financial and other records. The pole camera recorded useful evidence throughout its duration. The record shows that officers included evidence from the pole camera, along with many other pieces of evidence, in successful wiretap and search warrant applications starting in July 2017 and continuing throughout the fall and winter. This usefulness explains the eight-month duration of the use of the camera. By the end of 2017, the government was prepared to bring charges that Moore-Bush and Dinzey were trafficking narcotics from Springfield to Vermont, where they would exchange drugs for cash, firearms, and other valuables. A federal grand jury indicted Moore-Bush, Dinzey, and three others from Vermont as coconspirators, but not the mother Moore, on January 11, 2018, for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute heroin and twenty-eight grams or more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 and 841(b)(1)(B)(iii). Moore-Bush and Dinzey were arrested the following day. The pole camera, which at this point had been up for about eight months, was removed soon after her arrest, in mid-January 2018. Over the course of 2018, the government gathered evidence that Moore was involved in her daughter's drug trafficking - 9 - scheme, in part based on evidence that Moore-Bush was depositing cash from her drug sales into bank accounts in Massachusetts and Vermont held by Moore in trust for Moore-Bush. Almost a year after the original indictment, on December 20, 2018, the grand jury returned a superseding indictment naming Moore-Bush,1 Dinzey, the three Vermont co-conspirators, and adding three other coconspirators and Moore, Moore-Bush's mother.2 Moore was charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute heroin, cocaine, and cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 (Count One); one count of distribution and possession with intent to distribute heroin, cocaine, and cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) on November 17, 2017 (Count Three); one count of money 1 Moore-Bush was charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute heroin, cocaine, and 280 grams or more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 and 841(b)(1)(A)(iii) (Count One); five counts of distribution and/or possession with intent to distribute narcotics, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (Counts Two through Six); two counts of money laundering conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h) (Counts Seven and Eight); seven counts of money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1) (Counts Eleven and Fourteen through Nineteen); one count of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (Count Twenty); two counts of dealing firearms without a license, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A) (Counts TwentyOne and Twenty-Two); and one count of aiding and abetting the possession of a firearm by a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 2 (Count Twenty-Three). 2 The superseding indictment also removed one of the original Vermont co-conspirators. - 10 - laundering conspiracy in financial transactions in Hampden County, Massachusetts, Washington County, Vermont, and elsewhere, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h) (Count Eight); multiple counts of money laundering in those same locations, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1) with her daughter at T.D. Bank (Counts Fourteen through Nineteen); one count of making false statements to federal agents around January 12, 2018, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (Count Twenty-Four); and a drug forfeiture charge. B. The Motions to Suppress and District Court Opinion On April 22, 2019, Moore moved to suppress the pole camera evidence and the fruits of that evidence. Moore-Bush filed a very similar motion on May 2, 2019. The motions argued that the government's use of the pole camera was a search under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution that required judicial authorization. They argued they had both subjective and objectively reasonable expectations of privacy in the whole of [their] physical movements in and out of [their] home for a period of eight months.3 They argued the entire recording over the eight 3 They did not argue that the government had physically intrud[ed] onto their property under the trespass theory of Fourth Amendment searches. See Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 5 (2013). Indeed, the pole on which the camera was installed was a public utility pole across the street from Moore's home and not on her property. - 11 - months was a search, and they did not attempt to define what period of time the government might legally have recorded them, if any. Moore-Bush and Moore acknowledged that the Bucci decision from this circuit upheld the constitutionality of a pole camera that also operated for eight months. They argued that Bucci was no longer controlling precedent because [t]he search and seizure landscape, particularly regarding the scope of individual privacy rights, has changed considerably since Bucci was decided. In particular, they pointed to the Supreme Court case Carpenter v. United States. They also cited Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013), and United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012). They did not argue that the good faith exception could not apply or that probable cause did not exist. The government opposed the motions to suppress on May 6, 2019, addressing its arguments to the grounds Moore-Bush and Moore asserted in their motions. It argued that neither defendant had shown enough to support a finding of a subjective expectation of privacy. Further, it argued that Bucci was controlling and Bucci directly foreclosed any argument that Moore-Bush or Moore had an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the front of their home. It argued Carpenter did not impact, much less overrule, Bucci because Carpenter was a narrow decision about cell-site location information that did not call into question conventional surveillance techniques and tools, such as security cameras. - 12 - Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2220. And the government argued Jardines and Jones could not overrule Bucci because those cases primarily dealt with physical trespass, which is not at issue in this case. The government did not argue at any time that probable cause existed for either the installation of the pole camera or its eight-month duration. In its opposition, the government did not raise the good faith exception to argue that, regardless, the evidence could not be suppressed. The district court heard oral argument on the motions on March 13, 2019. On June 4, 2019, it released a memorandum and order granting Moore-Bush and Moore's motions to suppress.4 In its order, the court found that both defendants subjectively expected privacy in the whole of their movements over the course of eight months from continuous video recording with magnification and logging features in the front of their house. The court held that defendants' direct and imputed subjective privacy interests were infer[red] from their choice to live in a home in a quiet suburban neighborhood. The court reasoned that persons who live in quiet suburban neighborhoods have greater privacy interests than persons who live in other neighborhoods. The court held that Bucci was not controlling because of the Supreme Court's decision in Carpenter, which it found freed it 4 The June 4, 2019, order made minor, non-substantive corrections to an otherwise identical order from June 3, 2019. - 13 - to reevaluate the issue of whether warrantless pole camera surveillance requires a warrant. The district court held that: (1) continuous video recording for approximately eight months; (2) focus on the driveway and front of house; (3) ability to zoom in so close that [the pole camera] can read license plate numbers; and (4) creation of a digitally searchable log made the use of the pole camera a search. It did not determine if any discrete part of the recording was not a search or at what point during the duration of the pole camera's recording a warrant was required. It simply suppressed the entirety of the pole camera evidence. Since no exception under Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 239 (2011), was raised by the government in its opposition to the defendants' suppression motions, the district court considered any government argument as to the good faith exception to have been waived. The court suppressed all evidence obtained directly by the pole camera, but [took] no action with regard to evidence collected indirectly from the Pole Camera.5 The government filed a motion for reconsideration on June 4, 2019. For the first time in the proceedings, it attached the specific photos and videos from the pole camera that it 5 On June 6, 2019, Moore filed a Renewed Motion for Evidentiary Hearing on Derivative Evidence and Suppression of Evidence Derived From Fruits of Pole Camera Surveillance, with argument on this point. The district court has not ruled on it yet because of these appeals. - 14 - intended to introduce at trial. Based on those photos and the record as a whole, it argued that the district court had inaccurately exaggerated the pole camera's technical capabilities. Citing Davis and United States v. Sparks, 711 F.3d 58 (1st Cir. 2013), for the first time, the government argued that the good faith exception to the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule should apply and permit it to introduce the pole camera evidence even if the evidence were unconstitutionally obtained. The district court denied the motion for reconsideration on June 5, 2019. On June 6, 2019, the government appealed the suppression order. On June 19, 2019, it appealed the order denying reconsideration.