OH12: Def had no standing to contest pinging wife’s cell phone even though police were looking for him

Defendant was a suspected heroin dealer taking his family on runs to Boston to get the heroin. When defendant left, they went to his house and did a trash pull and got his wife’s cell phone number from a bill in the trash. The got a warrant to ping her cell phone. Defendant didn’t have standing to contest pinging her cell phone. Even if he did, Ohio already holds that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy from pinging on public roads. State v. Campbell, 2014-Ohio-5315, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 5141 (12th Dist. December 1, 2014):

[*P17] The record is clear that the BURN agents obtained a search warrant for a cell phone belonging to Campbell’s wife so that Campbell did not have reasonable expectation of privacy in his wife’s phone. The fact that agents pinged the phone belonging to Campbell’s wife did not implicate Campbell’s personal rights in any way and he cannot raise a challenge to the warrant related to his wife’s phone. See State v. Crawford, 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 98605, 2013-Ohio-1659, ¶ 45 (finding that appellant did not have standing to challenge a search involving his codefendants where he “could not challenge the cell phone records of anyone but his own”).

[*P18] Even if we were to entertain Campbell’s argument that his rights were somehow implicated even though the phone belonged to his wife, we would still overrule his argument regarding the cell phone pinging for two reasons. First, Campbell had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the pinging of the phone voluntarily used while traveling on public thoroughfares. See State v. Taylor, 2d Dist. Montgomery No. 25764, 2014-Ohio-2550 (affirming trial court’s denial of appellant’s motion to suppress where appellant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the pings emitted by the cell phone in appellant’s possession); and United States v. Skinner, 690 F.3d 772, 777 (6th Cir.2012) (holding that appellant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data given off by his voluntarily procured cell phone).

[*P19] The other reason this court would affirm the denial of Campbell’s motion to suppress is because agents had procured a valid search warrant supported by probable cause. The record indicates that agents requested the search warrant to follow the pinging of the cell phone belonging to Campbell’s wife, and that such warrant was valid. As we will discuss next in regard to the stop, agents had ample probable cause to investigate, including pinging the cell phone to show its location in or about the Massachusetts area.