Registe v. Georgia
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Following the denial of his motion to suppress, Michael Jason Registe filed an application for an interlocutory appeal. The issue on appeal before the Supreme Court was [w]hether the trial court erred by denying Registe's motion to suppress evidence pertaining to his cell phone records. Registe was indicted for the 2007 murder of two men who were shot in the head some time after borrowing a car from Lawrence Kidd. The next morning, Kidd told police that the victims were going to meet someone named "Mike," and Kidd provided Mike's cell phone number. Using this cell number, a detective faxed Cricket Communications, the cell service provider, a message asking for the cell phone records at issue. Cricket reported that the account belonged to "Kareem Penn," an alias of Registe. After cold calling numbers in the phone records provided by Cricket, Registe was eventually identified, his apartment searched pursuant to a warrant issued in part by the cell phone records, and Registe was later arrested. Registe moved to suppress the phone records, contending that under Georgia law, the telephone records should have been considered inadmissible. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the voluntary disclosure of telephone records in this case satisfied the applicable statutes. Under the facts set forth in the trial court's order, the Court concluded that Cricket believed in good faith that disclosure of Registe's cell phone records was appropriate. "Here, Cricket received information directly from police that its records could help identify an at-large suspect of a double homicide committed within a day of the request and that the suspect presented a present and immediate danger. This supported Cricket's good faith belief that there was an ongoing emergency, and that belief supported Cricket's voluntary disclosure of its records. . . . Registe's motion to suppress was properly denied."
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