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People v. Jennings
The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed a judgment and remanded a murder case for a new trial.
According to the court of appeals opinion that was not published pursuant to C.A.R. 35(e), authorities found the body of Dayna Jennings’ father, W.M., encased in concrete in a crawlspace under the house he and Jennings had lived in. Jennings was arrested and her cellphone was confiscated by authorities.
During the authorities’ searches of the cellphone pursuant to warrants, officers found Jennings used it to conduct internet research on an animal sedative called acepromazine. The prosecution’s forensic toxicologist discovered the presence of the sedative in W.M.’s tissue samples.
Prosecutors charged Jennings with first-degree murder and tampering with a deceased human body. Before the trial, Jennings moved to suppress the evidence authorities got from her cellphone. The trial court denied the motion. Jennings was convicted of the charged offenses.
On appeal, Jennings contended the court reversibly erred by denying her motion to suppress evidence authorities got from her cellphone. The appeals court agreed with Jennings that the first search warrant the officers got for the data stored on her cellphone violated the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement.
For the first warrant, a police officer presented a magistrate with a proposed search warrant for Jennings’ cellphone, along with an application and supporting affidavit. The first warrant listed categories of data covering more than 10 categories.
A detective downloaded data from the phone, which is considered the first search. After that, law enforcement obtained two more warrants for data on Jennings’ cellphone.
In three recent rulings, the Colorado Supreme Court addressed the particularity in which data on a cellphone must be described on a search warrant. The high court previously held a warrant broadly authorizing police to search a cellphone for all texts, videos, pictures, contact lists, phone records and data showing ownership or possession violated the particularity demanded of the Fourth Amendment.
The Colorado Court of Appeals found the first warrant suffered from a lack of particularity. The appeals court reversed Jennings’ conviction and remanded the case for a new trial. On retrial, the court can allow the parties to present additional evidence or arguments concerning whether an exception to the exclusionary rule applies.