United States of America v. Jamarr Smith, et al.

Oxford, Mississippi criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant.

On February 5, 2018, three individuals acting in concert robbed

Sylvester Cobbs, a Contract Route Driver with the United States Postal

Service. As a Route Driver, Cobbs delivered and picked up mail from five

rural post offices in DeSoto County and Tunica County, Mississippi. At the

time of the robbery, Cobbs was headed to Lake Cormorant, the fourth of five

stops he would make along his route.

The mail that Cobbs collected included registered mail bags, which

contained cash receipts collected by the Postal Service from the sale of items

such as money orders and stamps. By the time that Cobbs arrived at Lake

Cormorant, he had already collected registered mail bags from three other

post offices along his route.

At approximately 5:20 p.m., Cobbs arrived at the Lake Cormorant

Post Office. As he normally would, Cobbs backed his mail truck up to the

back door, where he would retrieve mail bags waiting for him inside the post

office. Before Cobbs could open the back door to the post office, however, an

unknown assailant—later determined to be Defendant-Appellant Gilbert

McThunel—sprayed Cobbs with pepper spray, struck Cobbs multiple times

with a handgun, threatened to kill him, and grabbed the registered mail bags

from Cobbs's truck. The mail bags contained $60,706. Thereafter, the

assailant fled, and Cobbs drove his truck to the front of the post office and

called 911.

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No suspect was arrested in connection to the robbery on the day of the

occurrence. However, around three days after the robbery, Postal Inspector

Stephen Mathews began his investigation and was able to locate a video of

the incident taken from a camera located at a farm office across the street

from the post office. The video showed a red Hyundai and a large white SUV

in the area. The video revealed the assailant getting out of the SUV before

the robbery, walking behind the building, and waiting for Cobbs to arrive.

While behind the building, the assailant had his "hand up to his ear and

elbow[] out” for multiple minutes, consistent with talking on a cell phone.

However, the video does not show an actual cell phone. Later, after assaulting

Cobbs, the assailant went back behind the building, squatted down, and began

"looking at something in his hand” which appeared "indicative of” cell

phone use. Although not visible on video, it is inferred that the suspect got

back into the SUV before fleeing the scene. Based upon his examination of

the video, Mathews surmised that three suspects were involved.

Sometime after obtaining the video footage, but prior to applying for

any warrants, Mathews located a witness, Forrest Coffman, who lived across

the street. Coffman had seen the red Hyundai "circling the area back and

forth,” and he decided to ask the driver if he was lost. The driver stated that

he was looking for the highway. Coffman gave the driver directions, turned

around, and went back inside his house. A "few moments later,” Coffman

heard a "bunch of commotion,” stepped outside, and saw officers at the post

office. Coffman walked over and spoke with law enforcement, where he

described the person in the red Hyundai as a black male with a reddish color

goatee. After meeting with law enforcement on the day of the incident,

Coffman had no further involvement with the matter for approximately

fifteen months.

By November 2018, nine months after the robbery, the Postal

Inspection Service had not been able to identify any suspects from video

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footage or witness interviews, and Postal Inspector Todd Matney testified

that they "were having a problem identifying the individuals.” However,

during the course of their investigation, Matney and Mathews learned about

"a new type of search warrant”—a "geofence warrant”—designed to

"identify who might be present at the scene of a robbery.” Believing that this

warrant could help them rekindle their investigation, on November 8, 2018,

Matney and Mathews applied for a geofence warrant seeking information

from Google to locate potential suspects and witnesses in connection to the

robbery.

Defendant was found guilty.



Affirmed on appeal because of Fourth Amendment violation.



We hold that geofence warrants are modern-day general warrants and

are unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. However, considering

law enforcement’s reasonable conduct in this case in light of the novelty of

this type of warrant, we uphold the district court’s determination that

suppression was unwarranted under the good-faith exception.



Law enforcement acted in good faith in relying on

this type of warrant. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court’s denial of

Appellants’ motion to suppress.