United States v. Mathews

250 F. Supp. 3d 806, 2017 WL 1407036, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60348
CourtDistrict Court, D. Colorado
DecidedApril 20, 2017
DocketCriminal Case No. 16-cr-129-WJM
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 250 F. Supp. 3d 806 (United States v. Mathews) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Mathews, 250 F. Supp. 3d 806, 2017 WL 1407036, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60348 (D. Colo. 2017).

Opinion

ORDER ON PENDING MOTIONS

William J. Martinez, United States District Judge

Béfore the Court are nine motions filed by Defendant Vincent Mathews. (“Mathews”):

1. Motion to Suppress In-Court and Out-of-Court Identification Regarding Confidential Informant Number One (ECF No. 32); .
2. Motion to Suppress In-Court and Out-of-Court Identification Regarding CI-11317 (together with the pre- ■. vious motion, “Photo Lineup Motions”) (ECF No. 33);
3.‘ Motion to Suppress Evidence Obtained Through Search Warrant of 1538 Uinta Street, Denver, Colorado (“Uinta Suppression Motion”) (ECF No. 34); .
4.- Motion Seeking Disclosure of Other Crimes, Wrongs, or Acts Pursuant to Rule 404(b) (“404(b) Motion”) (ECF No. 35);
5. Motion for Bill of Particulars (ECF No. 36);
6. Motion to Suppress Warrantless Seizure of GPS Tracker Evidence (“GPS Suppression Motion”) (ECF No. 37);
7. Motion to Suppress Statements Made During Custodial Interrogation (“Interrogation Suppression Motion”) (ECF No. 38);
8. Motion to Exclude Expert Testimony Regarding GPS Coordinates or in the Alternative for a Daubert Hearing (“GPS Daubert Motion”) (ECF No. 40); and
9. Motion for Hearing (ECF No. 42), seeking an evidentiary hearing on the various suppression motions and the GPS Daubert Motion.

Having reviewed all of these motions, the Court finds no material factual disputes that require resolution, and thus the Court will deny the Motion for Hearing. The Court’s disposition of the various other motions is as follows.

I. BACKGROUND.

Believing that Mathews committed two pawn shop robberies (one on December 21, 2015, and the other on March 23, 2016), the Government charges Mathews with one count of conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951 (a.k.a. the Hobbs Act). (See ■ECF No, 1.) At the time of the alleged crimes, Mathews was in the custody of the Colorado Department of Corrections (“CDOC”) as a “community, inmate”—a status similar to parole, as described in more detail below (Part II.C.3). At the direction of his parole officer, Mathews wore a GPS ankle monitor.

Much of the evidence asserted against Mathews came from the GPS data gathered from that ankle monitor by Aaron Anderson, a Colorado parole officer who was. also assigned to a federal task force that had been investigating the robberies. [810]*810As described by Mathews, Anderson “wore two hats” and was acting in his role as a federal officer at the time he accessed the GPS data. (ECF No. 37 at 2.) Anderson, who was not Mathews’s assigned parole officer, affirms that he accessed Mathews’s GPS data as part of the federal investigation, upon suspicion that Mathews had committed the pawn shop robberies, and not for any purpose specific to his duties as a parole officer. (ECF No. 72-4 at 3.) The GPS data allegedly show Mathews on the premises of the two pawn shops when the robberies occurred. (See ECF No. 1-1 ¶¶ 6-7.)

Mathews now brings several motions related to that GPS evidence, as well as related to photo lineup evidence that the Government intends to use against him. Mathews also seeks various other forms of relief, all addressed below.

II. GPS SUPPRESSION MOTION (ECF No. 37)

The motion with the most potential impact on this case is Mathews’s GPS Suppression Motion. The Court will therefore address it first.

Mathews asserts that the federal task force, acting alone, could never have obtained his GPS data without a warrant, and therefore Anderson could not share it with the federal task force without a warrant. (ECF No. 37 at 2-3.) For the reasons explained below, the Court finds that Anderson lawfully accessed Mathews’s GPS data and lawfully shared it with the federal task force.

A. GPS Searches & Lawfulness of Sharing Information

A government “conducts a search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment “when it attaches.a device to a person’s body, without consent, for the purpose of tracking that individual’s movements.” Grady v. North Carolina, — U.S. -, 135 S.Ct. 1368, 1370, 191 L.Ed.2d 459 (2015). In fact, it is a perpetual search for the entire time that the device is capable of transmitting the person’s whereabouts. See id. at 1371 (rejecting argument that no search exists until the government actually accesses GPS-obtained data: “The State’s program is plainly designed to obtain information. And since it does so by physically intruding on a subject’s body, it effects a Fourth Amendment search.”). Thus, Colorado parole authorities such as Anderson were perpetually “searching” Mathews within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment for as long as he wore the ankle monitor.1

Nonetheless, Anderson’s GPS-enabled search was not necessarily unlawful. See id. (remanding to lower court to determine whether search-via-ankle-monitor was reasonable under the totality of the circumstances). And, if Anderson lawfully obtained Mathews’s GPS coordinates, nothing prevented him from sharing what he learned with federal investigators. “Evidence legally obtained by one police agency may be made available to other such agencies without a warrant, even for a use different from that for which it was originally taken.” United States v. Lester, 647 F.2d 869, 875 (8th Cir. 1981); see also 1 Wayne R. LaFave, Search & Seizure § 1.5(c) n.155 (5th ed., Oct. 2016 update) (citing additional similar cases).

B. Relevant Case Law

Given the foregoing, the question is not whether Anderson could permissibly share GPS data with the federal task force, but [811]*811whether Anderson himself lawfully “searched” Mathews by accessing his GPS' data specifically on suspicion of committing a crime, as opposed to accessing it for a purpose arising from Anderson’s role as a parole officer. Particularly relevant to this inquiry—i.e., the relevance of the parole officer’s specific, motivation for the search—is a progression of Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit cases from 2001 to 2013.

The first case is United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 122 S.Ct. 587, 151 L.Ed.2d 497 (2001). The defendant there had been sentenced by a California court to probation for an unrelated drug offense. Id. at 114, 122 S.Ct. 587. The probation order required the defendant to submit to searches by any probation officer or law enforcement officer essentially for any reason, with or without suspicion. Id. at 114-15, 122 S.Ct. 587. A police detective soon began to suspect that the defendant was involved in a string of arsons and pipe-bombings of power company equipment, and the detective chose to search the defendant’s home without a warrant, given the probation conditions. Id. at 115, 122 S.Ct. 587.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
250 F. Supp. 3d 806, 2017 WL 1407036, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60348, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-mathews-cod-2017.