Particularity requirement for cell-phone warrants; People v Hughes; People v Carson; Good-faith exception; People v Hellstrom; Four-corners review; People v Keller

The court held that the search warrant for defendant’s cell phone failed the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement because it authorized an essentially unlimited extraction of data without adequately tying each category of data to a defined offense or providing meaningful limiting parameters such as a relevant time frame. Further, the good-faith exception did not apply because the warrant was so facially deficient that officers could not reasonably presume it valid. Defendant was charged with second-degree murder after his mother-in-law was found dead with a cord around her neck. Police sought and obtained a warrant to extract extensive categories of data from his phone, including call logs, texts, e-mails, photos, videos, audio, GPS information, calendar data, internet history, and “any and all” application data. The trial court suppressed the phone evidence after an evidentiary hearing, finding the warrant operated as a general warrant. The prosecution appealed, and the Supreme Court remanded the case to the court. The court emphasized that cell phones contain “‘the privacies of life’” and that courts must “‘jealously guard’” the particularity requirement, rejecting warrants that permit “‘wide-ranging exploratory rummaging[.]’” The court found the affidavit stated only that the device “may contain” communications, location, and “other digital evidence” related to an undefined “incident.” It did not identify a specific offense under investigation, did not refer to defendant as a suspect, and did not include “specific time or date limitations” despite the police having information to “appropriately curtail the search warrant.” The court explained that the warrant left “the scope, breadth, or focus of the search” to officer discretion, which “shifts the particularity requirement from the warrant, where it belongs[.]” The court further held the good-faith exception was unavailable because Michigan precedent recognizes that a warrant can be so facially deficient in particularizing what may be searched and seized from a phone that reliance is unreasonable. It also declined to entertain severance because the prosecution did not provide the required category-by-category analysis. Affirmed.