Background
Police investigating an armed carjacking obtained real-time cell-site location information from Marcos Andrade’s wireless carrier without a warrant. The information helped officers locate a phone associated with the investigation, and Andrade later pleaded no contest to second degree robbery after the trial court denied his motion to suppress the location evidence.
The prosecution relied on the exigent-circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. That exception permits action without advance judicial approval when officers reasonably confront an emergency requiring immediate action, but it does not dispense with the need for specific facts connecting the urgency to the particular search.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth District reversed. The circumstances known to officers did not establish an emergency sufficient to obtain Andrade’s cell-location data without a warrant. The seriousness of an armed offense and a generalized concern that suspects might remain dangerous did not, without a concrete and immediate threat, establish the required exigency for tracking the phone.
The court ordered the location information suppressed and directed the trial court to permit Andrade to withdraw his plea. If he chooses not to withdraw it, the existing judgment may be reinstated. The remedy recognizes that the suppression ruling preceded and materially informed the plea rather than treating the constitutional error as detached from the conviction.
Key Takeaways
- Real-time or historical cell-site information ordinarily requires a warrant supported by probable cause.
- The gravity of the suspected crime does not by itself establish exigent circumstances.
- Officers and prosecutors need case-specific facts showing why waiting for a warrant would create an immediate danger, escape risk, or loss of evidence.
- A defendant who pleaded after losing a suppression motion may withdraw the plea when the ruling is reversed on appeal.
Why It Matters
The published decision gives California criminal lawyers a concrete framework for testing emergency requests for digital location data. Suppression briefing should reconstruct what officers actually knew at the moment of the carrier request, what threat was then active, and whether a warrant could have been sought through expedited procedures.
Law-enforcement agencies should document the factual basis for urgency rather than rely on the violent nature of an offense as a substitute. Carriers, investigators, and courts increasingly handle rapid electronic warrant procedures, making a generalized claim that delay was impractical less persuasive without evidence of a genuine emergency.
Digital-location requests require special care because they can reveal a person’s movements with precision and can be transmitted almost instantly. The relevant timeline should include when police identified the device, when they contacted the provider, what facts suggested imminent harm, and how long an electronic warrant would have taken. Those details determine whether the emergency was genuine or whether ordinary warrant procedures were practical.
For plea negotiations, defense counsel should preserve suppression issues in the manner California law requires and explain the consequences of appellate reversal to the client. Prosecutors assessing a case after suppression should identify what independent evidence remains and whether it supports the original charges. The remand does not itself end the prosecution; it restores Andrade’s choice whether to withdraw the plea and litigate without the suppressed location information.
The decision also encourages disciplined use of preservation tools. Defense teams should request provider returns, emergency-disclosure forms, dispatch records, and warrant-application timestamps in discovery. Those materials can test whether officers perceived an immediate danger or instead used an emergency channel as a convenient investigative shortcut. Prosecutors should audit the same record before relying on the exception and, where time permits, obtain a warrant even if they believe exigency could later be established.
Read the full opinion (PDF) · Court docket