Criminal Law

In prosecution on unlawful possession of firearm charge stemming from warrantless search by police of defendant’s apartment, Dist. Ct. erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress said search. Record showed that: (1) police received report that individual who had been shot was hiding in defendant’s apartment; (2) defendant and another individual with visible wound came out of his apartment; and (3) after police placed defendant in squad car, they proceeded to search apartment where firearms were located. Ct. of Appeals found that State had failed to establish existence of exigent circumstances to justify warrantless search after rejecting govt. argument that search was reasonable because shooter could have been located in apartment.

In prosecution on distribution of cocaine base counts arising out of four controlled purchases arranged by police and carried out by paid informant, Dist. Ct. did not err in admitting recorded statements between confidential informant and defendant that occurred during controlled purchases. While defendant argued that said evidence constituted inadmissible hearsay and that its admission violated Confrontation Clause since confidential informant did not testify at trial, Ct. found that recorded statements did not constitute hearsay evidence because it was not introduced for truth of matters asserted, but rather was admitted to give context to defendant’s own admissions in recorded statements. Also, Dist. Ct. did not err in failing to grant defendant’s request for missing witness instruction arising out of informant’s absence from trial due to his assertion of 5th Amendment privilege stemming from his admission that he had skimmed some of govt.’s drug purchase money; defendant failed to make necessary showing that informant was peculiarly within power of govt. to produce where record showed that informant was equally unavailable to both parties.

In prosecution on bank robbery charge, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss indictment even though indictment was filed approximately 10 years after commission of charged offense, and charged offense had applicable 5-year limitation period. Instant limitation period was tolled under language contained in 18 USC section 3297 where, as here, DNA test did not implicate defendant as culprit until eight years after commission of offense. Ct rejected defendant’s argument that limitations period began two years after offense when police received 40 “hits” from unknown individuals on mixed DNA profile since circumstances of hits did not strongly tie particular individual to charged offense. Also, defendant failed to support claim that pre-trial delay denied him due process where any delay did not affect his ability to present viable defense or challenge accuracy of operative DNA test results.

In prosecution on possession of child pornography charges, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress his confession where defendant made confession during job interview with FBI. While FBI never gave defendant Miranda warnings prior to defendant giving his confession, defendant never was in custody so as to trigger any Miranda rights where defendant did not come to FBI as suspect and was free to leave job interview, and where defendant was actively participating in encounter as job applicant both before and after giving confession. Moreover, while defendant argued that his consent to search computer was involuntary, any error was harmless where record showed that FBI would have inevitably discovered said pictures given fact that agent had told defendant that he would seek search warrant if defendant had denied consent.