Mobley v. State
In Mobley, the Court held that (1) downloading crash data from an airbag control module is a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and that (2) for the inevitable discovery rule to apply, "there must be a reasonable probability that the evidence would have been discovered by lawful means" which the police were pursuing "prior to the occurrence of the illegal conduct."
The case involves a fatal car crash in which officers on the scene obtained crash data from the airbag control module ("ACM") in Mobley's vehicle. The ACM showed that Mobley had been traveling at 97 miles per hour five seconds before the airbag deployed, well above the posted speed limit of 45 miles per hour. The trial court denied Mobley's motion to suppress the crash data, and Mobley was convicted of vehicular homicide.
1. Downloading data from an airbag control module is a search.
Much like the opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Carpenter v. United States, the opinion in Mobley evaluates the 4th Amendment question under both a "property approach," and the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test announced in Katz v. United States.
The property-based approach looks to the text of the Fourth Amendment, which refers to the right to be secure in one's "persons, houses, papers, and effects." Writing for the Court, Justice Blackwell explained that "[f]or much of our history, the Fourth Amendment was understood to be concerned only with government trespasses upon the rights of individuals under the common law to be secure in their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects.’” From this standpoint, “[a] personal motor vehicle is plainly among the ‘effects’ with which the Fourth Amendment – as it historically was understood – is concerned, and a physical intrusion into a personal motor vehicle for the purpose of obtaining information for a law enforcement investigation generally is a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment under the traditional common law trespass standard.”
Downloading ACM data was also a search under the reasonable expectation of privacy test. Reversing the Court of Appeals on this point, Justice Blackwell wrote that the "constitutional preference for warrants is so strong that searches and seizures without a warrant ‘are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment – subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions,” and "the state has failed to identify any recognized exception" here.
2. The inevitable discovery rule only applies to means of discovery officers are pursuing at the time the warrantless search occurs.
The state argued that even if downloading ACM data was a search, the trial court was still correct not to suppress the evidence because the officers would have inevitably discovered the information under a valid warrant they obtained the next day. With officers seeking and obtaining an otherwise valid warrant, the state argued, whether the original search itself was illegal has no practical consequence.
The Court rejected the "belt and suspenders" practice of search-first and obtain-a-warrant-later. In prior cases, the Court has explained that there must be a reasonable probability the evidence would have been discovered by lawful means which were "possessed by the police and were being actively pursued prior to the occurrence of the illegal conduct."Since there was no evidence in the record that the officers on the scene were preparing or even contemplating a warrant application, the inevitable discovery rule did not apply.
The full opinion is available here.
The State v. Towns
In Towns, the Court affirmed a trial court's decision to dismiss an indictment where the selection of grand jurors was not "random" within the meaning of OCGA 15-12-66.1 ("the grand jury provision").
Under the grand jury provision, whenever there is an insufficient number of persons available to empanel a grand jury, the judge shall order the clerk to choose however many grand jurors are needed from the list of persons summoned as trial jurors. But the clerk must select the substitute grand jurors "at random."
When this situation occurred in Towns case, the clerk examined a list of people summoned to appear as trial jurors the next day, identifying four candidates she knew could be contacted quickly and were likely available to report immediately. The trial court dismissed the indictment, finding that even though the clerk did not have any ill intent, "her reasoning of selecting those individuals" was not random.
The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that a selection process is "random" when "each candidate for selection has an equal probability of being chosen." At bare minimum, "the clerk must employ a selection process that produces choices that are substantially unpredictable and not meaningfully susceptible to the conscious influence of the clerk or other court personnel." The selection is certainly not random where "the clerk relied on her personal knowledge of the prospective petit jurors" contact information and availability.
The opinion did draw a dissent. Justices Ellington and Boggs agreed that the selection was not random, but believed dismissing the indictment was too harsh a remedy. Randomness, Justice Ellington wrote, "is not such an 'essential and substantial'" component of the statutory scheme "that a violation requires the invalidation of every indictment issued by the resulting grand jury." The clerk "substantially complied with the law," the dissenters wrote, and so they would reverse the order quashing the indictment.
The full opinion is available here.
Dekalb County School District v. Gold et al.
In Gold the Court held that an agreement to provide two-years advance notice to employees of Dekalb County Schools of any plan to suspend contributions to their Tax-Sheltered Annuity Plan ("TSA") had become part of the employees' contracts, and the District could therefore be liable for breach of that agreement.
Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Melton held that the agreement became part of the contract because “the record shows that Appellants offered their employees a retirement benefits plan, and also promised to provide two years’ notice before reducing any of the funding provisions of the benefits plan. In exchange, the employees agreed to begin to work or continue to work for Appellants, and to wait until their retirement to collect these funds. That bargain contemplated the necessary consideration flowing from both parties, thus making the two-year notice provision a part of Appellees’ employment contracts.”
The full opinion is available here.
Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Melton held that the agreement became part of the contract because “the record shows that Appellants offered their employees a retirement benefits plan, and also promised to provide two years’ notice before reducing any of the funding provisions of the benefits plan. In exchange, the employees agreed to begin to work or continue to work for Appellants, and to wait until their retirement to collect these funds. That bargain contemplated the necessary consideration flowing from both parties, thus making the two-year notice provision a part of Appellees’ employment contracts.”
The full opinion is available here.
Affirming Murder Convictions and Life Sentences
ANDERSON V. THE STATE (S19A0682)
CAUSEY V. THE STATE (S19A0957)
LEILI V. THE STATE (S19A0541)
MCKINNEY V. THE STATE (S19A0908)
MOHAMED V. THE STATE (S19A0705)
POWELL V. THE STATE (S19A0721)
SMITH V. THE STATE (S19A0749)
THORNTON V. THE STATE (S19A0755)
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