Court Opinion

ID: 9803820
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 16:05:48.14802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:03:29.094572
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Judge:
concurring in result.
T1 I eoncur in the Court's decision to affirm the District Court's order suppressing evidence obtained as a result of the search of Appellee's cellular phone but write separately to address the following.
12 The United States Supreme Court's opinion in Réley v. California, - U.S. -, 134 S.Ct. 2473, 189 L.Ed.2d 430 (2014), con trols this Court's determination of the present case. In Riley, the Supreme Court determined that an officer's warrantless search of data on a cell phone incident to arrest violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Id., 184 S.Ct. at 2485-86. Absent other case-specific ciream-stances justifying a warrantless search, a warrant is required before an officer may search the data on a cell phone, even when incident to arrest. Id., 184 S.Ct. at 2485, 2498-94.
13 In the present case, officers arrested Appellee for possession of a controlled dangerous substance, searched his phone incident to arrest, viewed certain photographs of Appellee stored within the phone's data and discovered evidence of a separate criminal offense. The officers' viewing of the contents of Appellee's cell phone constituted a search. As this search was warrantless and not supported by exigent cireumstances, it was unlawful under Riley. Id.
1 4 The State argues for application of the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule that the United States Supreme Court outlined in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 920-21, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3419, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984). However, the good-faith exception does not apply to the cireumstances of the present case.
T5 Years ago this Court recognized that Article II, $ 80 of the Oklahoma Constitution and the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution contain almost exactly the same wording and in substance are identical in the rights protected. State v. Sittingdown, 2010 OK CR 22, ¶17, 240 P.3d 714, 718; State v. McNeal, 2000 OK CR 18, ¶10, 6 P.3d 1055, 1057; Long v. State, 1985 OK CR 119, ¶6, 706 P.2d 915, 916-17; State v. Thomason, 1975 OK.CR 148, ¶14, 538 P.2d 1080, 1086; DeGraff v. State, 1909 OK CR 82, 2 Okla.Crim. 519, 103 P. 538, 541. Therefore, this Court follows the United States Supreme Court's precedent concerning the Fourth Amendment and, in particular, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. Id.; see Tomlin v. State, 1994 OK CR 14, ¶33, 869 P.2d 334, 341 (recognizing the Court's repeated refusals to extend Leon good-faith exception beyond the parameters that the Supreme Court has outlined)
T6 The extent of the good-faith exception is well defined. "The exclusionary rule is not applied when a law enforcement officer has conducted a search in 'objectively reasonable reliance' upon a search warrant issued by a magistrate and has abided by the terms of *947the warrant even if the warrant is subsequently determined to be invalid." State v. Sittingdown, 2010 OK CR 22, 117, 240 P.3d 714, 718, citing Leon, 468 U.S. at 922, 104 S.Ct. at 3420. The good-faith exception turns on objective reasonableness. Leon, 468 U.S. at 928, 104 S.Ct. at 3421. In Davis v. United States, - U.S. -, 131 S.Ct. 2419 180 L.Ed.2d 285 (2011), the Supreme Court listed those areas where the Court had extended he good-faith exception to similarly themed cireumstances.
Tllinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340, 107 S.Ct. 1160, 94 L.Ed.2d 364 (1987), extended the good-faith exception to searches conducted in reasonable reliance on subsequently invalidated statutes. Id., at 349-850, 107 S.Ct. 1160 ("legislators, like judicial officers, are not the focus of the rule"). In Arizona v. Evans, supra, the Court applied the good-faith exception in a case where the police reasonably relied on erroneous information concerning an arrest warrant in a database maintained by judicial employees. Id., at 14, 115 S.Ct. 1185. Most recently, in Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 185, 129 S.Ct. 695, 172 L.Ed.2d 496, we extended Evans in a case where police employees erred in maintaining ree-ords in a warrant database. "[Ilsolated," "nonrecurring" police negligence, we determined, lacks the culpability required to justify the harsh sanction of exclusion. 555 U.S., at 187, 144, 129 S.Ct. 695.
Id., 181 S.Ct. at 2428. The Supreme Court has also extended the good-faith exception to searches conducted in reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent. Id., 131 S.Ct. at 2434.
1 7 Turning to the seizure of Appellee's cell phone data, none of the objectively reasonable cireumstances that the United States Supreme Court has recognized are present. After the officers viewed the phone's contents and discovered photographic evidence of the separate offense, the officers asked Appellee for consent to download the contents of the phone and Appellee declined. The officers then used their knowledge of the photographs on the phone to obtain a search warrant for the phone's contents and seized the data pursuant to the warrant. As the officers' initial viewing of the photographs on the cell phone was unlawful, the officers could not have acted in the objectively reasonable belief that their conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Leon, 468 U.S. at 928, 926, 104 S.Ct. at 3421, 3422 (holding suppression is appropriate where officers could not have harbored objectively reasonable belief that the search warrant was valid).
T 8 In Baxter v. State, 2010 OK CR 20, 238 P.3d 934, this Court discussed application of the exclusionary rule. Id., 2010 OK CR 20, ¶ 9, 238 P.3d at 937. The question is whether the evidence was " 'come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint'" Id., quoting Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 417, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963).
T9 In the present case, the evidence against Appellee was solely the result of the unlawful search of his cell phone's contents. The officers would not have known of the photographs without first conducting the illegal search of the phone's contents. Thus, the officers did not have any independent source for their knowledge of the separate offense and there was not any intervening occurrence which might attenuate the connection between the unlawful search and the evidence and thus dissipate the taint Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 487-88, 83 S.Ct. at 417. As the officers obtained the data from Appellee's cell phone through exploitation of the initial illegal search of the phone's content, the officers did not have an objective reasonable belief that the search warrant was valid and the District Court properly suppressed the phone's data.