Criminal Law

In prosecution on unlawful possession of firearm charge, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress firearm seized from defendant during traffic stop in which defendant was passenger in vehicle. Record showed that: (1) after driver had been handcuffed and placed in squad car, defendant asked several times if he could leave scene; (2) police, who had prior contacts with defendant and who had been alerted in recent police meeting that defendant might be armed, consistently directed defendant to stay at scene while they attempted to verify that he had valid driver’s license to take possession of arrested driver’s vehicle; (3) while said inquiry was still ongoing, officer directed defendant to exit vehicle for purposes of conducting protective pat-down; and (4) before police could conduct pat-down, defendant fled scene, and police discovered handgun in defendant’s waist during subsequent chase. Reasonable justification existed to continue traffic stop after driver had been apprehended due to police attempt to verify that defendant had valid driver’s license, and thus officers had legal justification to detain defendant for duration of traffic stop, which included subsequent inquiry into his driver's license status. Moreover, govt. could use handgun at trial because traffic stop had not concluded at time defendant had fled scene and revealed existence of handgun during subsequent chase.

In prosecution on possession of child pornography charges, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress images of child pornography found in his cell-phone, where defendant asserted that police’s initial detention while he was sitting in his parked car in park, as well as subsequent search of his cell-phone pursuant to federal warrant violated his 4^th Amendment rights. Police conducted valid Terry stop, where: (1) officers observed defendant display odd behavior that gave them impression that he was using drugs; (2) officers’ request to see defendant’s driver’s license did not have 4^th Amendment implication; (3) police could ask defendant to remove towel on his lap because he kept putting his hands under towel; (4) police could have reasonably believed that defendant may have engaged in public indecency where removal of towel revealed defendant’s bare genitals, and where defendant kept moving his cell-phone to prevent officers from observing image on cell-phone; and (5) officers’ smell of marijuana, as well as K-9’s alert to presence of drugs, allowed officers to search defendant’s vehicle and seize his cell-phone. Also, while record supported defendant’s claim that federal application for warrant lacked probable cause to search cell-phone, where application was modeled after similar application by state authorities for search warrant that was ultimately suppressed by state court, and where federal application lacked evidence indicating sufficient likelihood that cell-phone would contain child pornography, good-faith exception to exclusionary rule applied, where there was nothing impermissible in federal officials seeking and obtaining federal warrant after state court suppression of initial search warrant.