C.D.Cal.: Even if Carpenter reverses, Davis GFE will apply to searches occurring before

Even though CSLI is before SCOTUS in Carpenter, this court had sustained seizure of CSLI before, so, even if Carpenter reverses, the Davis good faith exception will sustain this seizure. United States v. Brown, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126504 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 7, 2017):

At the time the search was executed, neither the Ninth Circuit nor the Supreme Court had invalidated the SCA and there is considerable case law holding that probable cause need not be established to obtain historical CSLI under Section 2703(d). Thus, the government’s conduct was objectively reasonable under Krull. Furthermore, the government relied on an apparently valid order from a magistrate judge and their reliance on a judicially sanctioned search deserves deference under Leon. Accordingly, the Court concludes that the good faith exception applies here. See Alvarez, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72803, 2016 WL 3163005, *5-*7 (finding that the good faith exception applied, even after concluding that the government’s warrantless search of CSLI violated the Fourth Amendment); Williams, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16451, 2016 WL 492934, at *2 (applying the good faith exception even after finding that the Fourth Amendment applies to CSLI); Cooper, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25935, 2015 WL 881578, at *9 (same), 785 F.3d at 518 n.20 (“In the alternative, we hold that the prosecutors and officers here acted in good faith and therefore, under the well-established Leon exception, the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress did not constitute reversible error.”); Jones, 908 F. Supp. 2d at 216 (“Here, the actions of law enforcement officials were objectively reasonable when they acquired prospective cell data under the SCA from a third-party provider. Given the unsettled nature of the law in 2005, which has remained the case even up to the present, it was reasonable for them to believe that the Fourth Amendment was not implicated.”). Accordingly, defendant’s motion to suppress is DENIED.

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