The Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments in a closely watched case in which a Stockbridge man is challenging a warrantless search by police of his car’s computer system.
The vehicular homicide case has the potential to set important precedents involving Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The court is expected to decide whether police must first get a search warrant before downloading data from a car’s airbag control module, the so-called “black box” that can store cellphone contacts, the car’s location history and intricate details of the car’s operation.
If police are not required to get a warrant, “every traffic stop could provide an opportunity for police to download this data,” lawyer Nathan Freed Wessler told the justices. “People have privacy interests,” said Wessler, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney from New York.
The appeal is being brought by Victor Lamont Mobley, whose Dodge Charger collided with a Chevrolet Corvette on Dec. 15, 2014, on Flippen Road in Henry County. The driver of the Corvette and a passenger died at the scene.
Witnesses said Mobley crashed into the Corvette as it was making a left turn. At the scene, one officer downloaded the data from the airbag control module in Mobley’s Charger without getting a search warrant from a local judge.
The data showed that Mobley had been driving 97 mph five seconds before his car’s airbag deployed. He would later be charged with and convicted of vehicular homicide, speeding and reckless driving.
It is standard operating procedure for Henry County police to download data from control modules at accident scenes without a warrant, Assistant District Attorney Sharon Hopkins told the justices. They get a search warrant later after the car is towed to the impound lot, she said.
For this reason, the seizure should be allowed because it’s inevitable that the data would be discovered, Hopkins said. It’s also important to get the data at the scene, she added, because the module can be damaged when the car is towed away.
But Justice Nels Peterson suggested that this pattern and practice being employed by Henry County police could be unconstitutional. And Justice Keith Blackwell said that by entering a car under such circumstances, without a warrant, police may be committing a criminal trespass.
Blackwell also noted that it is routine for roads to be shut down for long periods of time when there are serious accidents, particularly ones with fatalities. Why can’t a police officer go to a judge and get a search warrant before the road reopens? he asked.
That’s possible if there are enough officers on duty at that time, Hopkins said.
That didn’t seem to satisfy Justice Sarah Warren. “Do we need to ignore constitutional requirements because we’re short-staffed some day?” she asked.
The case also has the potential to lead to a sweeping ruling that transforms the way state judges consider evidence seized illegally by police officers.
In a question posed to lawyers before Wednesday’s arguments, the court asked whether it should follow its own 27-year-old precedent that said judges must adhere to the so-called “exclusionary rule.” This ruling relied on a state law that says if a judge finds evidence is obtained by police through an unlawful search and seizure, “it shall not be admissible in evidence against (the defendant) in any trial.”
Brandon Bullard, a state public defender representing Mobley, told the justices that the court should stick to its precedent, and that changes to the law should be made only by the General Assembly.
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If the court decides not to follow its precedent, it will be a watershed moment for Fourth Amendment law in Georgia, Atlanta criminal defense attorney Don Samuel said.
“It means we will no longer be able to litigate the lawlessness of a police officer’s conduct when they knock down your door, search your home or go into your pocketbook,” said Samuel, who is not involved in Mobley’s case. “If they say we’re not going to have the exclusionary rule, except in the most outrageous cases, there’s going to be a huge increase in illegal searches because the police will know it’s coming into evidence anyway.”
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