Facts
On October 11, 2022, Jeneation Lewis was shot and killed while sitting in a vehicle at a gas station in Harrison County. Two witnesses saw a white male near Lewis’s vehicle immediately before or after the shooting. They described the man as wearing blue clothing and leaving the scene in a red Ford SUV with contrasting trim. One witness called 911, while the other later returned to the vehicle and determined that Lewis was dead from a gunshot wound to the head.
Investigators recovered Lewis’s cell phone near his body, along with a shell casing and a pair of gloves. Surveillance video showed the red SUV arriving and Lewis’s white sedan parked at the gas pump, although the shooting itself was not captured on video.
Police obtained a search warrant for Lewis’s phone and performed a forensic extraction. The extraction revealed text messages between Lewis and a contact saved in his phone as “JHN.” The messages showed that Lewis and JHN had arranged to meet that evening at the gas station where Lewis was killed. During the conversation, Lewis referred to JHN as “John,” and the final message to JHN was sent at 6:03 p.m., shortly before police were dispatched to the shooting.
Using the telephone number associated with JHN that had been extracted from Lewis’s phone, an intelligence analyst contacted C Spire and requested information associated with the number. C Spire provided subscriber information identifying John Anderson and his address. C Spire also supplied four location “pings” based on nearby cell towers, the first obtained at 6:38 p.m. and three more later that evening.
Investigators used Anderson’s information to obtain his Florida driver’s-license information. His license identified his mother as his emergency contact, and investigators learned that she owned a red Ford Expedition. Police used Anderson’s photograph to prepare a six-person photographic lineup, from which one of the eyewitnesses identified Anderson as the man she had seen at the gas station. Officers also went to Anderson’s address and observed the red Ford Expedition there.
Police subsequently obtained warrants for Anderson’s arrest and the search of the residence. Anderson was arrested early the following morning. Officers found clothing in a washing machine matching the description provided by the 911 caller. A later search of the property uncovered a nine-millimeter pistol in the backyard.
Nine days after the shooting, the circuit court issued a search warrant for Anderson’s October 11 and 12 phone records. The records obtained pursuant to that warrant confirmed the information C Spire had provided police on the night of the shooting.
Before trial, Anderson moved to suppress the C Spire information and the evidence derived from it, arguing that police had violated the Fourth Amendment and the Mississippi Constitution by obtaining information associated with his phone without a warrant. The circuit court denied the motion, finding that the information constituted real-time location data and that exigent circumstances justified obtaining it without a warrant.
A jury subsequently convicted Anderson of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a felon. He received consecutive sentences of life imprisonment and ten years and appealed, challenging the admission of the warrantlessly obtained cell-phone information and derivative evidence. MCOA affirmed.
Analysis
Anderson argued that because the police did not obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before obtaining identity and location information about Anderson from C Spire, all evidence from the C Spire records and derivative evidence of the C Spire records should be suppressed as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Anderson relied on SCOTUS Carpenter v. United States, a United States Supreme Court case where, without a warrant, the government obtained cell-site location information (CSLI). SCOTUS held that the Government must generally obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before acquiring CSLI data. However, the Court stated that its decision “is a narrow one” which did not apply to “real-time CSLI.” SCOTUS also ruled that an exception to its ruling applied when the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that a warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
The Mississippi Supreme Court has not addressed the exigent circumstances exception to gathering CSLI data without a warrant. However, our Mississippi caselaw requires generally that in order for a warrantless search to be legal under the exigent circumstances exception, the State must show that (1) there are reasonable grounds to believe that an emergency situation exists and that there is an immediate need for police assistance in order to protect life and property; (2) the primary motivation for the search is not to make an arrest and/or to seize evidence, and (3) there is some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause to associate the emergency with the area or place searched. See MSC Crawford.
SCOTUS clearly excepted from the warrant requirement CSLI data that has been gathered under exigent circumstances for specific enumerated purposes, and courts around the nation have relied on this exception. Accordingly, this Court finds that the exigent circumstances exception to warrantless searches is applicable to CSLI data. This Court is now tasked with deciding whether the trial court abused its discretion by finding that the State proved exigent circumstances that authorized Harrison County police to obtain Anderson’s name and address along with four real-time CSLI pings.
Anderson contended that there “was no emergency,” as evidenced by the fact that the police had control of the scene, interviewed witnesses, and did not immediately go to Anderson’s address when the CSLI was obtained. Further, Anderson contended that the C Spire request was made to arrest and seize evidence, not to prevent harm. According to Anderson, there was no reason to believe that C Spire would destroy the subscriber information or the cell location information.
The State argued that because a public, execution-style murder with an armed suspect at large threatened public safety and risked evidence destruction, the warrantless search of Anderson’s cell phone account for identity and location information was justified by exigent circumstances.
Officer Pennington stated that the shooting occurred in broad daylight at a busy gas station so public safety was an issue, clearly. Further, Officer Pennington stated that there was a concern about any potential destruction of evidence. Analyst Sullivan and Officer Pennington testified that they requested real-time location information to find Anderson’s current location. Officer Pennington stated that the purpose of the request to C Spire was to locate this individual, to find out what they knew about Jeneation Lewis and the purpose of the meeting and anything that they may have seen if they arrived there.
This Court finds that Anderson provides no legal authority for finding that an unlawful search occurred when the police obtained the name and address associated with Anderson’s account. Carpenter, and related caselaw, find that generally it is unlawful for the police to obtain location information from a cell phone without a warrant, but nothing prohibited the officers from obtaining the name and address associated with Anderson’s account. We find that it was not unlawful for the police to obtain Anderson’s identifying information from his C Spire account without a warrant.
The third element for determining whether there was an exigent circumstance asks whether there is some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to associate the emergency with the area or place searched. This element is traditionally applied to a warrantless search of a place, so the phrasing is strange in light of the facts of this case for a warrantless search of a phone. In the context of this case, the issue is better rephrased as whether there was probable cause to associate Anderson’s phone information with the emergency situation. Because the victim was planning to meet Anderson and texting with Anderson immediately prior to being shot, there was probable cause to search Anderson’s phone.
This Court finds that the trial court did not err by denying Anderson’s motion to suppress. This Court holds that under Carpenter, the exigent circumstances exception to warrantless searches applies to warrantless searches of this cell phone information. However, as provided by the Mississippi Supreme Court, the three elements for the existence of exigent circumstances must be proved. This Court finds that the trial court did not err by applying the exigent circumstances exception to the warrantless search of Anderson’s cell phone records. There is substantial evidence to support the trial court’s denial of Anderson’s motion to suppress.
Anderson’s convictions and sentences are affirmed.