TN: Carpenter argument defaulted for lack of a good record

A Carpenter CSLI plain error argument isn’t reached because of deficiencies in the record brought up. State v. Avant, 2019 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 415 (July 15, 2019)*:

As best we can gather, the thrust of Defendants’ argument is that the Memphis Police did not obtain a warrant before securing the “cell-site records” for the Defendants’ cell phones. While Defendants insist that a clear and unequivocal rule of law was breached, citing Carpenter, and that Defendants’ fundamental right to a fair trial was affected, we cannot reach the issue because, in our view, the record is not clear as to what happened in the trial court. First, the search warrant does not appear in the record even though Detective Sewell testified that after he took possession of the cell phones during the arrest in Texas, he “[s]ecured a search warrant, and asked [Mr. Twilley] to see what was inside the phone.” Second, we note that there are several pages missing from the transcript during the testimony of Larry Pierce, the RF engineer who testified about Defendants’ location on the day of the incident from the cell phone location information. Specifically, the transcript skips from page 548 to page 560. Neither party points out this discrepancy in the transcript. Defendants are not entitled to plain error relief.