Motion to suppress defendant’s tether location data; Applicability of the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule; People v Goldston; People v Lucynski

Holding that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied, the court concluded that the trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress his tether location data and for a new trial. In these consolidated appeals he challenged his convictions of AWIM, felonious assault, and felony-firearm in one case, and AWIM, first-degree home invasion, felony-firearm, and intentional discharge of a firearm at a dwelling in the other. The court previously remanded for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the good-faith exception “applied to permit the use of defendant’s tether location data at trial.” It now found that the trial court, relying on the evidentiary hearing testimony, did not err in finding that the good-faith exception applied. While one of the victims (P) told a police sergeant (E) and officer (C) “that defendant had been released from his tether, neither officer had any verification that [P’s] statement was true or additional information indicating that the tether was inactive.” Further, as the trial court noted, C and E “were tasked with stabilizing the victim and providing care as needed.” Nothing in the record suggested that their “failure to relay the information from [P] to other officers [was] an attempt to conceal the information; in other words, nothing from the record” showed any wrongful police conduct. The record supported “the trial court’s finding that their failure to communicate [P’s] statement resulted from their immediate need to secure the scene and administer aid to” another victim, who was bleeding after being repeatedly shot. There was also no evidence that the detective “who requested the tether location data, or” the sergeant (L) “who performed the search, knew that defendant’s tether condition had been dismissed.” The detective was in fact “told that the tether was still active when he submitted his warrant request to the Wayne County Tether Unit. [L] also confirmed that he did not learn defendant had been released from his tether condition until after defendant’s arrest.” Affirmed.