Commonwealth v. Augustine (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-141-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-11803 COMMONWEALTH vs. SHABAZZ AUGUSTINE. Suffolk. April 9, 2015. – August 18, 2015. Present: Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, & Hines, JJ. Cellular Telephone. Constitutional Law, Search and seizure, Probable cause. Search and Seizure, Probable cause, Warrant, Affidavit. Probable Cause. Practice, Criminal, Warrant, Affidavit. Indictment found and returned in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk on July 29, 2011. After review by this court, 467 Mass. 230 (2014), a pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by Peter B. Krupp, J. An application for leave to file an interlocutory appeal was allowed by Spina, J. in the Supreme Judicial Court for the county of Suffolk. Cailin M. Campbell, Assistant District Attorney (Mark T. Lee, Assistant District Attorney, with her) for the Commonwealth. Jessie J. Rossman (Matthew R. Segal with her) for the defendant. Matthew J. Tokson, of the District of Columbia, Elizabeth A. Lunt, Kevin S. Prussia, Kelly Halford, & Chauncey B. Wood, for Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, amicus curiae, submitted a brief. BOTSFORD, J. In Commonwealth v. Augustine, 467 Mass. 230, 232 (2014) (Augustine I), S.C., 470 Mass. 837 (2015), this court held that the defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the historical cell site location information[1] (CSLI) relating to his cellular telephone, and that therefore, the warrant requirement of art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights applied to that information. We remanded the case to the Superior Court to determine whether, in the particular circumstances of this case, the Commonwealth is able to meet that warrant requirement through a demonstration of probable cause. Id. For the reasons to be discussed, we conclude that the Commonwealth has done so with respect to the defendant’s CSLI records for the period from August 24 to August 26, 2004.[2] 1. Background. a. Procedural history. We summarize the procedural background of this case that led to our decision in Augustine I, and to the present issue. On September 22, 2004, in connection with an investigation into the death of Julaine Jules, the Commonwealth filed in the Superior Court an application for an order to obtain from the defendant’s cellular service provider certain records, including CSLI, for the fourteen-day period beginning August 24, 2004, the last day that Jules was […]