Commonwealth v. Estabrook

Summary

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court considered whether obtaining historical cellular site location information (CSLI) without a search warrant violated art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. The court held that a request for up to six hours of historical telephone-call CSLI may proceed without a warrant, but that the Commonwealth's request for two weeks of CSLI required a warrant. The court further held that the defendants' statements and the CSLI were not necessarily suppressible because the statements were not fruits of the unlawful search and the later warrant was supported by independently derived probable cause.

Holdings

1. Assuming compliance with 18 U.S.C. § 2703, the Commonwealth may obtain historical telephone-call CSLI covering six hours or less without a search warrant because that request does not violate the individual's constitutionally protected expectation of privacy under article 14.
2. Because the Commonwealth requested two weeks of historical CSLI, the article 14 warrant requirement applied to the entirety of the requested data, even though the Commonwealth proposed to use only six hours of the CSLI at trial.
3. Statements made by Bradley in direct response to police questions based on the tainted CSLI must be suppressed, but statements obtained through investigation independent of the CSLI, including Estabrook's statements and other portions of Bradley's interviews, are not subject to suppression.
4. The 2013 search warrant was supported by probable cause derived independently of the tainted CSLI, so the CSLI obtained under that warrant was admissible.

Questions Presented

1. Whether obtaining up to six hours of historical telephone-call CSLI requires a search warrant under article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
2. Whether the Commonwealth's request for two weeks of historical CSLI required a warrant even though it intended to use only six hours of the data at trial.
3. Whether the defendants' statements were fruits of the unlawfully obtained CSLI.
4. Whether the 2013 search warrant for the CSLI was supported by probable cause derived from sources independent of the initial unlawful acquisition.

Disposition

other