After she was charged with “conspiracy to distribute
narcotics in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846”, Danielle
Goding filed a motion to suppress “and all statements obtained as a result of a
vehicle stop on I–87 in New York State.”
U.S. v. Trapp, 2014 WL 1117012
(U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont 2014). The news story you can find here explains how
the case arose.
The judge who has the case did the same thing, in more
detail, in this opinion:
On April 23, 2013, at approximately 2
p.m., FBI Special Agent Destito called New York State Police Investigator Law. .
. . Destito told Law he had been
conducting an investigation and advised that a taxi carrying a male suspected
of drug dealing would be approaching the outlet stores off Exit 20 in Lake
George, New York, to meet with another person. . . . Law drove to
the outlet stores and contacted New York State Trooper Miller, asking him to
look out for a taxi coming from Vermont. . . . Miller . . . called
Law back and said such a taxi had just passed him. . . . A few
minutes later, Law saw the taxi pull into the outlet stores' parking lot and
watched a man get out. . . . Law recognized the man as “Kenny
Trapp” because about one month earlier, Law and Miller had `dealt’ with Trapp
during a traffic stop of a taxi in which Trapp was a passenger. . . .
Law
watched Trapp exit the taxi carrying `a small little bag . . . almost like a
shopping bag.’ . . . He observed Trapp go in and out of various outlet stores
[and] then saw a `black livery with New York City style plates’ pull into the
parking lot near the Polo outlet store. . . . The town car's front
license plate was hanging down. . . . Law watched a black woman
with blond hair and a bright blue hat exit the town car. The woman, later
identified as Danielle Goding, walked into the Polo outlet. . . .
Trapp also went into the Polo outlet. . . . [and he] and Goding then separately
exited the store a few minutes later. . . . Law observed Trapp with
what appeared to be a Timberland shopping bag, which he had carried into the
Polo outlet, but no longer noticed the `black bag.’ Goding also had bags
in her hand as she exited the store.
At this point, a `Tri County’ taxi
pulled into the parking lot. . . . Trapp put his bags in the trunk and got in.
Law called Destito, who asked him to follow Trapp's taxi. Law followed it onto
Route 9, Route 149, and then Route 4 into Vermont. Destito had also given
Law Vermont State Trooper Andrew Todd's cell phone number. Destito had
called Todd shortly before 5 p.m. on April 23, 2013, and told him he was
working on an `ongoing drug investigation’ and `wanted to coordinate’ Todd with
a New York State Trooper `in terms of a vehicle that was coming to Vermont’
after `something that took place in Lake George, New York.’ . . .
Law called Todd [who]. . . . was sitting in his
car just east of the New York state line on Route 4 in Vermont when the taxi
drove by. . . . When Law saw Todd's cruiser enter the highway, he
made a U-turn and headed back to New York. Todd observed the taxi make
`several violations’ -- speeding, illegal lane change, failure to use directional
signals, and tailgating -- before pulling it over. He told the taxi driver
about the moving violations and his `general’ concerns about the connection
between interstate taxi travel and drug trafficking. . . . The
driver then consented to a search of the taxi `as well as his property and
person.’
Next, Todd told the passenger, Kenneth
Trapp, about the impending vehicle search . . . and asked him to exit the taxi.
Trapp complied. Todd informed Trapp that a K–9 unit, which had arrived
moments after Todd pulled the taxi over, would also conduct a search.
Todd asked Trapp for consent to search his shopping bags in the trunk, but
Trapp refused. Todd did an initial search of the taxi -- not including
Trapp's bags -- and then the. . . . drug dog, Maximus, hopped inside the
taxi to sniff around at the handler's instruction. . . . Maximus `alerted
to the presence of narcotics both where Mr. Trapp [had been] sitting and where
his property was in the trunk.’ . . . Based on Maximus' alert, Todd
detained Trapp, seized his shopping bags, then applied for and received a
warrant to search Trapp's belongings. . . . Todd later uncovered
1,200 bags of heroin in Trapp's bags.
Meanwhile, Trooper Miller had
arrived to assist Law in his surveillance at the outlets. . . . After observing
Danielle Goding get back into the black town car outside the Polo outlet,
Miller followed the car onto Route 9 and then southbound on I–87. Law. .
. had `advised [Miller] to make a car stop . . . if he could’ on the black town
car carrying Goding. . . . Law and Miller had observed . . . that [its]
front license plate was secured by one screw and was hanging down at an
angle. . . . Law also informed Miller, to some extent, of his
previous surveillance of Goding and Trapp at the Polo outlet and suspicions of
drug activity. . . .
Miller pulled over the black town car
based on its unsecured license plate. . . . During his conversation with the
driver, Miller smelled burnt marijuana in the vehicle and asked the driver and
the female passenger, Goding, to exit the car. . . . Based on the
marijuana odor, Miller believed he had probable cause to search the car and its
contents. . . . Inside a plastic bag in the backseat, Miller found a watch box
containing approximately $14,000 in cash. . . . Goding told Miller
the money was hers, she worked as a baker, and she had come up to the outlets
to shop. . . . He did not believe this story because she had a Polo
outlet job application with her and also wore `very long press-on’ nails that `looked
like they just recently had been painted.’ Id. Miller did not
find any evidence of marijuana after searching the town car. . . .
U.S. v. Trapp, supra.
The officers took Goding “back to the Queensbury, New York,
barracks”, where she was “detained in a locked interview room at the request of
Destito, who was en route . . . with Drug Enforcement Agency (`DEA’) Special
Agent Thomas Doud.” U.S. v. Trapp, supra. Destito and Doud arrived “around 9 p.m. and
were given Goding's personal belongings, including her cell phone.” U.S. v.
Trapp, supra. The agents
tried to look at her phone, but it was password-protected and
Goding declined to give them her password. . . . Goding and Trapp .
. . were both transported to Vermont for their appearance in federal court the
next day in Burlington. . . .Destito gave Goding's phone to another
agent in the Burlington FBI office and, two weeks later, that agent
circumvented the password and downloaded the contents of the phone.
U.S. v. Trapp, supra.
The judge prefaced his analysis of Goding’s arguments in
support of suppressing the evidence from her phone by explaining that while the
4th Amendment’s default standard is that officers must have a search
warrant to search a place or thing, under the
automobile exception to the 4th
Amendment warrant requirement, police may also conduct a warrantless search of
a vehicle if probable cause exists to believe it contains contraband or other
evidence of a crime. U.S. v. Gaskin, 364 F.3d 438 (U.S. Courtof Appeals for the 2d Circuit 2004). This may include containers within the vehicle. California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565 (1991).
Probable cause exists if the facts and
circumstances are sufficient to lead a person of reasonable caution to believe
evidence of a crime will be found in the place searched. U.S. v. Gaskin, supra. . . . `[C]ourts recognize that
experience and training may allow a law enforcement officer to discern probable
cause from facts and circumstances where a layman might not.’ U.S. v.
Gaskin, supra. . . .
U.S. v. Trapp, supra.
That brings us back to Goding’s motion to suppress. She made several arguments in the motion, but
the one this post focuses on “challenge[d] the search of her cell phone, which
occurred approximately two weeks after her arrest.” U.S. v.
Trapp, supra. The prosecution
“relie[d] on the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant
requirement, under which the police may conduct a warrantless search of a
lawfully arrested person, her belongings (including containers), and the area
within her control.” U.S. v. Trapp,
supra. In her motion, Goding cited
U.S. v. Wurie, 728 F.3d 1
(U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit 2013), in which the First Circuit held
that searching a cell phone pursuant to a lawful arrest `exceeds the boundaries
of the 4th Amendment search-incident-to-arrest exception.’ . . . In
November 2013, this Court similarly held that `cell phones properly seized
pursuant to the search-incident-to-arrest exception or the automobile exception
cannot be searched without a warrant.’ U.S. v. Mayo, 2013 WL
5945802, at *13 (U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont 2013). . . . The
Supreme Court has granted certiorari to address the issue in Wurie and a
similar case, People v. Riley, 2013 WL 475242 (California Court of Appeals 2013), and oral arguments are scheduled for April 29, 2014.
U.S. v. Trapp, supra.
The judge therefore found that
[f]or substantially the same reasons
articulated in Mayo, the Court finds the search incident to
arrest exception inapplicable in this circumstance. See U.S. v. Mayo,
supra. (concluding `it is simply inappropriate to analogize [modern] cell
phones to cigarette packs, purses, and address books; the more apt comparison
is to computers.’).
Accordingly, Goding's 4th Amendment
rights were violated when the FBI searched her phone, without a warrant, two
weeks after her arrest. As in Mayo, however,
the Court finds application of the exclusionary rule unwarranted because the
FBI acted with a reasonable good-faith belief that a warrant was
not required. . . . . Indeed, at the time of the search, `all of
the circuits to address the issue had permitted cell phone searches incident to
arrest. U.S. v. Mayo, supra. Wurie
was not decided until May 17, 2013, and the Second Circuit [Court of Appeals] has
not directly addressed the issue. `Law enforcement in this case
was acting pursuant to reasonable reading of Supreme Court precedent and a
general consensus in other circuits.’ U.S.
v. Mayo, supra. The good-faith exception therefore applies.
U.S. v. Trapp, supra.
As Wikipedia explains, the good faith exception essentially
nullifies the need to apply the exclusionary rule, which is how courts enforce
the 4th Amendment. In other
words, the premise is that law enforcement officers investigate, and conduct
searches and seizures, to obtain evidence they can use in a prosecution. The default standard, in terms of a remedy
for violations of the 4th Amendment is the exclusionary rule, which
is based on the premises that (i) police violate the 4th Amendment
to get evidence and (ii) if the exclusionary rule bars officers from using
evidence obtained in violation of the 4th Amendment, then this
should deter officers from committing such violations.
But since the exclusionary rule implicitly assumes
deliberate conduct, i.e., deliberate violations of the 4th
Amendment, courts have decided there is no need to apply it when officers did
not act in bad faith, i.e., did not deliberately violate the 4th Amendment. Instead, they
reasonably assumed that their conduct did not violation the 4th
Amendment.
So, Goding won on one issue and lost on another. The judge therefore denied her motion to suppress. U.S. v. Trapp, supra.
No comments:
Post a Comment