Iowa justices asked to toss Martinko conviction 10-1-22 Cedar Rapids Gazette
https://cedarrapidsgazette-ia.newsmemory.com/?publink=23ac41136_134866d
Lawyers for a Manchester man convicted in 2020 of killing 18-year-old Michelle Martinko 39 years earlier argued in late September (2022) during an appeal that he had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” and police should have gotten a warrant to obtain a DNA sample from a drinking straw he tossed in the trash.
The Iowa Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments and immediately started questioning his attorneys’ arguments — pointing out that this testing was limited only to identifying the cold-case suspect — Jerry Burns, 68 — and not for any medical or other private information. And law enforcement is allowed to use genetic material to identify someone under Iowa law. Burns’ DNA, found on the straw he discarded in the trash at a Pizza Ranch in Manchester, connected him to the fatal 1979 stabbing. Investigators had followed him to the restaurant and watched him throw the straw away. He was arrested for Martinko's murder on Dec. 19, 2018, 39 years to the day of her murder.
Martinko's body was found Dec. 19, 1979, in her parents' car, which was parked at a mall in Cedar Rapids. She had gone to the mall that night to get a coat. The teenager was stabbed 29 times; the fatal stab wound was to her heart- she bled to death.
Burns' DNA profile was developed from blood on Martinko's black dress. The profile found a hit with DNA from Bruns’ distant cousin in a public genetics database. Investigators then eventually narrowed the possible suspects based on the DNA profile to Burns and his two brothers. The brothers were eliminated as suspects. The DNA match on the straw was used as a means to secure a search warrant for further searches.
Burns' lawyer Nicholas Curran argued police could have potentially used Burns' DNA for other purposes besides the criminal investigation. Iowa law states police can obtain and test genetic information to help identify a person during a criminal investigation.
Curran also argued there were two searches in this case conducted without a warrant - retrieving the straw from the trash and extracting the DNA from the straw and having it analyzed.
ACLU lawyer Nathan Wessler said the involuntary shedding of DNA isn't considered abandoned. Wessler said even if Burns' DNA wasn't used for anything other than identity, there is the potential for invasion of his privacy.
Since Burns abandoned the straw - 'trash is trash' - there is no expectation of privacy according to Iowa Assistant Attorney General Tyler Buller. “The Fourth Amendment doesn't protect an abandoned item,” he said.
Investigators seized a straw left in the trash at a restaurant, which doesn't constitute a search. But they did obtain a warrant when they were going to collect DNA from a person - Burns - which is required.
The court will rule on the appeal at a later date. Burns is serving a life sentence in prison.
•9 documents are included for you to determine your stance on the collection of the DNA evidence from the discarded straw…
•Supportive of a proper conviction with the use of the DNA evidence: A, B, D, F, G, H (blue font can help both sides)
•Supportive of overturning the conviction due to DNA illegally collected: A, B, C, E, G, I (blue font can help both sides)
A. U.S. Constitution Fourth Amendment
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt4-2-3/ALDE_00000777/
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
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C. When Is There a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy?
https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-rights/when-the-fourth-amendment-applies.html
The 4th Amendment doesn't apply against governmental action unless defendants first establish that they had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place to be searched or the thing to be seized.
Applying this principle, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that individuals generally maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy in their bodies, clothing, and personal belongings. Homeowners possess a privacy interest that extends inside their homes and in the curtilage, the area immediately surrounding the outside of their homes.
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E. Kyllo v. United States (2001)
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt4-3-3/ALDE_00013717/['katz']#ALDF_00028404
In Kyllo v. United States (2001), the Court revitalized Katz's focus on privacy when it overturned the warrantless use of a thermal imaging device directed at a private home from a public street. The Court stated that obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical ‘intrusion into a constitutionally protected area’ . . . constitutes a search—at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use.
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G. Fourth Amendment Warrant Exceptions to Search or Seize
https://scmoorelaw.com/warrant-exceptions/
Items in Plain View
An officer may seize items that are in plain view as long as the officer has a right to be there and the incriminating nature of the object is immediately apparent. For example, if an officer stops a person for speeding and when issuing a ticket to the driver the officer sees, in plain view, what appear to be drugs in the backseat of the car the officer can seize the suspected drugs without a warrant.
The Exclusionary Rule
When the government violates the Fourth Amendment by conducting a warrantless search without a valid exception, the exclusionary rule may apply. Under the exclusionary rule any evidence obtained as a result of an unlawful search will not be permitted to be used at trial.
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I. Carpenter v. United States (2018)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-402
In April 2011, police arrested four men in connection with a series of armed robberies. One of the men confessed to the crimes and gave the FBI his cell phone number and the numbers of the other participants. The FBI used this information to apply for warrants, which the judges granted.
SCOTUS: 5-4 decision- The government's warrantless acquisition of Carpenter's cell-site records violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. The majority first acknowledged that the Fourth Amendment protects not only property interests, but also reasonable expectations of privacy. Expectations of privacy in this age of digital data do not fit neatly into existing precedents, but tracking person's movements and location through extensive cell-site records is far more intrusive than the precedents might have anticipated.
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B. Katz v. United States (1967)
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt4-3-3/ALDE_00013717/['katz']#ALDF_00028404
The Court stated in Katz v. United States (1967)... What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.
The capacity to claim the protection of the 4th Amendment depends not upon a property right in the invaded place but upon whether the area was one in which there was a reasonable expectation of freedom from governmental intrusion.
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D. Case Law 4 Cops
https://caselaw4cops.net/articles/exceptions.html#s9
Abandoned property is any property in which the owner relinquishes possession. When the property is abandoned, the owner no longer has any expectation of privacy over that property as protected by the Fourth Amendment.
Abandoned property that is rendered accessible to other members of the public is equally accessible to the police. A resident that removes trash from the curtilage (area of land next to and near a home) of the residence and places it by the curb no longer has a privacy interest in it, as stated in California v. Greenwood (1988) (see document F.).
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F. California v. Greenwood (1988)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1987/86-684
Local police suspected Billy Greenwood was dealing drugs from his residence. Because the police did not have enough evidence for a warrant to search his home, they searched the garbage bags Greenwood had left at the curb for pickup. The police uncovered evidence of drug use, which was then used to obtain a warrant to search the house. That search turned up illegal substances, and Greenwood was arrested on felony charges.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that garbage placed at the curbside is unprotected by the Fourth Amendment. The Court also noted that the police cannot be expected to ignore criminal activity that can be observed by "any member of the public."
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H. Abandonment Cases
https://www.everydayevidence.org/post/the-4th-abandonment
Abandonment is considered an exception to the warrant requirement. Thus, if an object is abandoned, then the individual had no expectation of privacy.
“In the law of search and seizure, however, the question is whether the defendant has, in discarding the property, relinquished his reasonable expectation of privacy so that its seizure and search is reasonable within the limits of the Fourth Amendment. In essence, what is abandoned is not necessarily the defendant's property, but his reasonable expectation of privacy.”
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