The Fourth Department, in a comprehensive decision dealing with several substantive issues not summarized here, affirmed defendant’s first degree murder (four counts) and burglary convictions, and reduced the arson second degree conviction to arson third degree. The victims were not alive when the fire was set. The definition of “person” (in the Arson second statute) was interpreted to refer to a living person. In addition, the court held that the motion to suppress the cell site location information (CSLI), which the police obtained without a warrant, and which placed defendant in the town where the crime was committed at the time of the crime, was properly denied:
As the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has written, “[w]e understand that cell phone users may reasonably want their location information to remain private, just as they may want their trash, placed curbside in opaque bags . . . or the view of their property from 400 feet above the ground . . . to remain so. But the recourse for these desires is in the market or the political process: in demanding that service providers do away with such records (or anonymize them) or in lobbying elected representatives to enact statutory protections. The Fourth Amendment, safeguarded by the courts, protects only reasonable expectations of privacy” (Application of U.S. for Historical Cell Site Data, 724 F3d at 615).
With respect to defendant’s state constitutional challenge, we conclude that “there is no sufficient reason’ to afford cell site location information at issue here greater protection under the state constitution than it is afforded under the federal constitution” … . People v Taylor, 2018 NY Slip Op 00709, Fourth Dept 2-2-18
CRIMINAL LAW (NO WARRANT NEEDED FOR CELL SITE LOCATION INFORMATION, THE TERM ‘PERSON’ IN THE ARSON SECOND STATUTE REFERS TO A LIVING PERSON, BECAUSE THE VICTIMS WERE NOT ALIVE WHEN THE FIRE WAS SET, THE CONVICTION WAS REDUCED TO ARSON THIRD (FOURTH DEPT))/EVIDENCE (CRIMINAL LAW, NO WARRANT NEEDED FOR CELL SITE LOCATION INFORMATION, THE TERM ‘PERSON’ IN THE ARSON SECOND STATUTE REFERS TO A LIVING PERSON, BECAUSE THE VICTIMS WERE NOT ALIVE WHEN THE FIRE WAS SET, THE CONVICTION WAS REDUCED TO ARSON THIRD (FOURTH DEPT))/CELL SITE LOCATION INFORMATION (CSIL) (CRIMINAL LAW, NO WARRANT NEEDED FOR CELL SITE LOCATION INFORMATION, THE TERM ‘PERSON’ IN THE ARSON SECOND STATUTE REFERS TO A LIVING PERSON, BECAUSE THE VICTIMS WERE NOT ALIVE WHEN THE FIRE WAS SET, THE CONVICTION WAS REDUCED TO ARSON THIRD (FOURTH DEPT))/SEARCH AND SEIZURE (CELL SITE LOCATION INFORMATION, NO WARRANT NEEDED FOR CELL SITE LOCATION INFORMATION (FOURTH DEPT))/CELL PHONES (CRIMINAL LAW, CELL SITE LOCATION INFORMATION, NO WARRANT NEEDED FOR CELL SITE LOCATION INFORMATION (FOURTH DEPT))