United States v. Graha

796 F.3d 332 (2015)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Six armed robberies occurred within a short period of time. D was eventually arrested in the commission of an armed robbery. An officer recognized similarities between all the robberies and the last one that D was arrested for. The officer prepared search warrants for D's and Jordan's residences and the pickup truck. The probable cause portion of each of the warrant affidavits described what was known at the time about the Milan Gold, 7-Eleven, Burger King, and McDonald's robberies. The search warrants were issued by a judge of the Circuit Court of Maryland for Baltimore City. The officers recovered two cell phones and obtained warrants for the phones. The phone numbers associated with each phone was determined and matched the respective numbers disclosed by D and Jordan after their arrest. D was tied to more robberies, and the police prepared and executed a second round of search warrants at D's and Jordan's residences. The officers recovered clothing that matched that worn by D during the Shell station robbery. P sought cell phone information from Sprint/Nextel, the service provider for the two phones recovered from the truck. P obtained two court orders for disclosure of CSLI for calls and text messages transmitted to and from both phones. The initial application sought CSLI for four time periods: August 10-15, 2010; September 18-20, 2010; January 21-23, 2011; and February 4-5, 2011. A second application followed, seeking information for a much broader timeframe: July 1, 2010, through February 6, 2011. The government used the court order to obtain from Sprint/Nextel records listing CSLI for this 221-day time period. Ds moved to suppress the CSLI obtained from Sprint/Nextel on Fourth Amendment grounds. D was convicted and appealed.