United States v. Clark

29 F. Supp. 3d 1131, 2014 WL 2895457, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86807
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Tennessee
DecidedJune 26, 2014
DocketCase No. 1:13-cr-84
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 29 F. Supp. 3d 1131 (United States v. Clark) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Clark, 29 F. Supp. 3d 1131, 2014 WL 2895457, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86807 (E.D. Tenn. 2014).

Opinion

ORDER

HARRY S. MATTICE, JR., District Judge.

On February 18, 2014, United States Magistrate Judge Susan K. Lee filed her Report and Recommendation (Doc. 23) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). In her Report and Recommendation, Magistrate Judge Lee recommended that Defendant’s Motion to Suppress (Doc. 15) be denied. On March 4, 2014, • Defendant filed timely objections to the Report and Recommendation.1 (Doc. 24).

The Court has now reviewed the entire record relevant to the instant objections, and for the reasons described below, the Court will ACCEPT and ADOPT Magistrate Judge Lee’s Report and Recommendation and will DENY Defendant’s Motion to Suppress.

I. BACKGROUND

Magistrate Judge Lee accurately summarized the pertinent facts in her Report and Recommendation as follows:

[1134]*1134Defendant is charged in a one-count indictment alleging he is an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a firearm and ammunition. At the hearing, the government offered the testimony of Phillip S. Narramore, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives task force officer and detective with the Chattanooga Police Department (“CPD”). Defendant offered no testimony. Considering Officer Narramore’s testimony and the exhibits,2 the relevant, and largely undisputed, facts are as follows.
All of the events at issue took place on April 29, 2013, after a same-day burglary involving the theft of firearms from a pawn shop. Officers with the CPD were attempting to locate “Kerry,” a suspect in the burglary, at two particular houses. When CPD Officer Watkins arrived at one of the houses around 10:45 a.m., he saw Defendant walk out of the house. When Officer Watkins yelled for Defendant to stop, Defendant fled on foot. During the ensuing chase, Officer Watkins saw Defendant discard a firearm. Officer Watkins caught and secured Defendant, then retrieved the abandoned gun. Officer Watkins arrested Defen-' dant for unlawful possession of a firearm without a permit. Items from Defendant’s pockets, including a “smart-phone,” were seized during a search of his person incident to arrest.
Officer Narramore, who was at the scene to investigate the theft of firearms during the burglary, picked up the smartphone after it had been removed from Defendant’s pocket and looked at the call log and recent text messages for the purpose of determining if Defendant was in contact with “Kerry.” At the time, Officer Narramore did not know if the gun abandoned by Defendant was one of the firearms stolen from the pawn shop. Officer Narramore’s initial review of the call log and text messages occurred within minutes of Defendant’s apprehension at the site of his arrest. Officer Narramore did not have consent or a warrant to search Defendant’s smartphone at that time. Officer Nar-ramore thought “by law” that while he would need a warrant or consent to have a technology expert extract data from the phone, he could look at the call log and text messages as part of the search conducted incident to Defendant’s arrest.
Defendant was transported to the CPD headquarters for questioning regarding the pawn shop burglary. Around 2:40 p.m., at the inception of the interview, Officer Narramore advised Defendant of his Miranda rights and told Defendant he could leave. Defendant waived his rights and signed a waiver of rights form at 2:44 p.m. In a recorded interview, Officer Narramore and another officer questioned Defendant for about an hour concerning the burglary and about ‘certain data found on the smartphone. During the questioning, Officer Narramore and Defendant looked at various data contained in the smartphone, which was in the officers’ possession during the interview. As the officers looked at data on the smartphone, they and Defendant discussed pictures, tweets, contacts, the call log, and text messages. Defendant at one point showed Officer Narramore a photograph of his child on the smart-phone. Officer Narramore never saw [1135]*1135any data regarding “Kerry” on the smartphone.
Near the conclusion of the interview, Officer Narramore asked Defendant to sign a consent to search form so data could be extracted by “dumping” the digital content of the smartphone. Officer Narramore told Defendant the global positioning (“GPS”) data from the smartphone could establish whether Defendant was near the pawn shop at the time of the burglary. Officer Narra-more said if the consent form was not signed, he would try to seek a warrant. Officer Narramore’s testimony indicated Defendant agreed to sign the consent form because he wanted to get his phone back quickly.
The government’s response did not argue the smartphone searches during the interview were based on consent by Defendant. After viewing the recording of the interview, however, Officer Narra-more testified he probably asked for and got consent to search the smartphone at some point prior to asking Defendant to sign the consent to search form because, toward the end of the recorded interview, Defendant stated, “I let you get at my phone.” Officer Narramore, however, could not remember if he had asked for and obtained consent to look at the data on Defendant’s smartphone prior to asking Defendant to sign the consent to search form. Officer Narramore conceded he cannot distinguish between text messages viewed prior to execution of the consent form from text messages viewed only after the consent form was signed.

(Doc. 23 at 1137-39).

II. ANALYSIS

Defendant has specifically objected to Magistrate Judge Lee’s finding “that the good faith exception applies to the unconstitutional search of Mr. Clark’s cell phone.” (Doc. 24 at 1). In response, the Government asserts that it does not agree with Magistrate Judge Lee’s finding that the search was unconstitutional, but agrees with her ultimate finding that the good faith exception applies and the evidence should not be suppressed. (Doc. 25 at 2).

When reviewing objections to a Report and Recommendation, the Court must conduct a de novo review of those portions of the Report and Recommendation to which objection is made, and it may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the Magistrate Judge’s findings or recommendations. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C).

In her Report and Recommendation, Magistrate Judge Lee concluded that it was uneontested that Defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy regarding the text messages saved on his phone. (Doc. 23 at 1140). Magistrate Judge Lee also found that “while the seizure of the smartphone was proper, the searches of Defendant’s smartphone for digital data that were conducted without consent and without warrant, violate the Fourth Amendment.” (Id. at 1144). Finally, as Magistrate Judge Lee noted in her Report and Recommendation, the United States Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari on January 17, 2014 to resolve this issue. See United States v. Wurie, — U.S. —, 134 S.Ct. 999, 187 L.Ed.2d 848 (2014); Riley v. California, — U.S. —, 134 S.Ct. 999, 187 L.Ed.2d 847 (2014).

On June 25, 2014, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous Opinion ruling upon Wurie and

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Spence v. State
118 A.3d 864 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 2015)
People v. Riley CA4/1
California Court of Appeal, 2015
People v. Gonzales CA4/2
California Court of Appeal, 2015
United States v. Garcia
68 F. Supp. 3d 1113 (N.D. California, 2014)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
29 F. Supp. 3d 1131, 2014 WL 2895457, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86807, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-clark-tned-2014.