Com. v. Price, N. No. 1734 WDA 2019
In the matter of Commonwealth v. Price, on appeal by the Commonwealth, the Superior Court overturns the trial courts order to suppress cell phone records.
In 2016, the defendant was arrested in connection with a double homicide. At the time of the arrest a cell phone was seized from his person. Later, a search warrant was requested and granted. Following a hearing on a motion to suppress the obtained records, the court stated that the affidavit of probable cause did not in fact establish probable cause to justify a search of the phone. Interestingly, the search warrant was granted by the same judge who then later suppressed the evidence. 
The Commonwealth first argues that the judge should not have been able to essentially overturn his own order granting the search warrant due to the law of the case doctrine. The court rejects this argument as any judge is permitted to revisit their own rulings. The law of the case doctrine prohibits a second judge from revisiting the decision in the same case.
Next, the Commonwealth argues that even if probable cause did not exist, the law of inevitable discovery would have permitted the admission of the evidence. Inevitable discovery means that even if the Commonwealth improperly obtained evidence, it is admissible if it would have inevitably been discovered by proper means. Here, the court finds that inevitable discovery applies. The Commonwealth left out of the affidavit information that they had at the time which would have provided probable cause, this would have allowed them to obtain a second warrant and therefore inevitable discovered the evidence. The order of the trial court granting suppression is reversed.
This case is like a double-edged sword – a police officer, when obtaining a warrant should include as much information as possible so as to develop probable cause to obtain the warrant. However, even if they leave something out, if they can establish that they knew it, they can get the evidence in anyway. From a defense prospective, I think that this opinion allows for sloppy and lazy police work, but alas, the law is the law.
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