MS: SW for evidence in car of DWI permitted seizure of data from black box

Search warrant for a vehicle for evidence that defendant was DWI permitted seizure of the vehicle’s “black box.” Taylor v. State, 94 So. 3d 298 (Miss. App. 2011), cert. den. 2012 Miss. LEXIS 371 (Aug. 2, 2012):

P36. Taylor concedes that the search warrant was reasonable at its inception. Taylor’s argument is based on the premise that the search warrant authorized the seizure of two “strictly limited” types of evidence: “biological evidence on the outside of the vehicle, linking Taylor’s vehicle to [William] … and evidence in the inside of the vehicle attempting to show that Taylor was intoxicated at the time of the incident.” Taylor argues that: “Respectfully, there is no way that an officer, reading the language of the warrant in question, could reasonably think that he or she would be allowed to cut open the floorboard of Taylor’s vehicle, and remove the black box.”

P37. The State argues that the search warrant should not be interpreted as pertaining to only two categories of potential evidence. The State points out that the search warrant stated that “items to be search[ed] for include, but are not limited to” the items that were expressly stated in the search warrant. According to the State, the language in the search warrant should be interpreted as including any data stored in the black box that demonstrated: (1) Taylor was intoxicated at the time she hit and killed William, or (2) Taylor was driving in a negligent manner when she hit and killed William.

P38. The search warrant specifically stated that the resulting search was “[t]o include items inside the vehicle.” We do not interpret the language in the search warrant as authorizing the seizure of two strictly limited categories of evidence, as Taylor argues. Instead, we interpret the search warrant as authorizing the seizure of any evidence that tended to demonstrate that Taylor was intoxicated at the time she hit and killed William. The black box and the data within it contained information that would assist in that regard. We find no merit to this issue.

2. THE DATA WITHIN THE BLACK-BOX

P39. Taylor’s second argument pertains to the admissibility of the data within the black box. Her argument is grounded on the concept that, because the black box was not within the scope of the search warrant, the data within the black box should be excluded from evidence as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” However, we have determined that there is no merit to Taylor’s argument regarding the seizure of the black box. It follows that there is no merit to this assignment of error.

How a vehicle’s black box would tend to show that the driver was under the influence is really a stretch. All it shows is physical data about the movement of the vehicle, not the condition of the driver. Even the good faith exception should not cover this because the black box is not even named in the warrant, which would have been easy to put in the warrant since the officer decided to get the information out of it, he had to know there was one on the car. If he didn’t know until later, it would have been easy to get another warrant, based on the PC from the first SW.