muller-motion-to-suppress

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 known to officers at the time, searching the cellular phone was unreasonable and a warrant was required before a search was conducted. A review of precedent case law in which a court found an exigent circumstance authorized a warrantless search shows that the actions taken in this case were unreasonable. The California Supreme Court has previously recognized that a warrantless entry may be appropriate when the police “‘seek an occupant reliably reported as missing.’ ” People v. Wharton, 53 Cal. 3d 522, 577 (1991). The Supreme Court has recognized an exigent circumstance when the police “have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.” Brigham City v. Stuart, supra, 547 U.S. at p. 400. No case law provides for the warrantless search of a cellular phone when no exigent circumstance was present. 2. Searching Cell Phones Without a Warrant is Generally Unlawful Post Riley v. California. In a recent unanimous decision, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that searches of cellular phones incident to arrest generally require a search warrant. Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014). The Supreme Court held: Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans “the privacies of life, “Boyd, supra, at 630, 6 S. Ct. 524, 29 L. Ed. 746. The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple—get a warrant. Id. at 2494-95. Due to the wealth of private information a cellular phone can contain, even though a person who is arrested is subject to less privacy, the Court still found that in order to search a cellular phone incident to arrest police are generally required to obtain a search warrant. Similarly, in this case, the deputies needed to obtain a warrant People v. Muller Defendant’s Motion to Suppress Evidence 12
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 before searching the cellular phone. No immediate threat to the safety of others was present which would circumscribe the warrant requirement. In People v. Daggs, 133 Cal. App. 4th 361 (1st Dist. 2005), the Appellate Court also dealt with the search of a cellular phone. However, Daggs is distinguishable. In Daggs, the court found that defendant had abandoned his phone when he left it unattended in a public place of business – at the scene of the crime – and made no attempt to reclaim it. Police seized the phone and waited over a week for someone to reclaim it. When no one tried to claim the phone, then officers searched the phone for identifying information. In contrast, the cellular phone in this case was not left unattended in a public place of business and the police did not wait a week to see if it would be reclaimed. Furthermore, the phone in this case was locked with a pass-code. The ruling in Daggs also occurred prior to the ruling in Riley where the United States Supreme Court emphasized the importance of privacy in a cellular phone. Therefore, the case is sufficiently distinguishable and the Court should grant the motion to suppress. D. The Fruits of the Unlawful Search Must be Suppressed and Forever Eliminated as Evidence in the Case and All Others That Follow. Over 50 years ago, the United States Supreme Court in the sentinel case of Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963), held that evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search may not be used against the defendant in a criminal proceeding. Referring to the illegal search as a “poisonous tree” and the evidence that flowed from it as the tainted fruit of that tree, the court held that the fruit of the poisonous tree is not admissible evidence. Furthermore, evidence obtained illegally may not even be used to establish probable cause for a subsequent search. United States v. Wanless, 882 F. 2d 1459 (9th Cir. 1989). In this case, the entire investigation flowed directly from the illegal search of the phone to the subsequent arrest of Matthew Muller and to all of the subsequent searches and all statements from witnesses with the exception of the Yen family. The phone search was quite literally the door that led to a room full and a car full of evidence, not to People v. Muller Defendant’s Motion to Suppress Evidence 13
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