State v. Perry, Cell Site Location Information, and the Exclusionary Rule

Last week, the court of appeals decided State v. Perry. It’s the appellate division’s first foray into cell site location information and a case that raises questions about the status of the exclusionary rule in North Carolina. Facts. A Raleigh officer arrested a man for possessing marijuana. The man identified his supplier and gave the officer the supplier’s phone number. The arrestee and the officer called the supplier, who indicated that he would be coming to Raleigh the next day. The officer applied for a court order requiring the supplier’s cell phone company, AT&T, to provide detailed records about the supplier’s account for the previous month and for the next two days. The information sought by the officer included cell site location information (CSLI). A superior court judge issued the order as requested, relying in part on 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d), which allows a court to issue such an order based on a showing of “specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the . . . information sought [is] relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.” AT&T complied with the order. As to information generated after the order was signed, AT&T provided such information every 15 minutes, apparently after a five- to seven-minute delay. Sometimes the information allowed the officer to determine the phone’s location within a few yards, but sometimes it only enabled the officer to determine the phone’s location within several hundred yards. Based on the CSLI, the officer determined that the [...]