Matthews v. State

1

SHAHEED MATTHEWS, Defendant Below, Appellant, v. STATE OF DELAWARE, Appellee.

C. A. No. 24, 2023

Supreme Court of Delaware

June 10, 2024

Submitted: March 13, 2024

Court Below-Superior Court of the State of Delaware Cr. ID. No 1806004163(N)

Upon appeal from the Superior Court of the State of Delaware. REVERSED AND REMANDED.

Shaheed Matthews, pro se, New Castle, Delaware.

John R. Williams, Esquire (argued), Delaware Department of Justice, Dover, Delaware, for Appellee State of Delaware.

Garrett B. Moritz, Esquire (argued) and Elizabeth M. Taylor, Esquire, Ross Aronstam &Moritz LLP, Wilmington, Delaware, Amicus Curiae for Appellant. ^[1]

Before SEITZ, Chief Justice; VALIHURA, TRAYNOR, LEGROW, and GRIFFITHS, Justices, constituting the Court en Banc.

GRIFFITHS, JUSTICE.

On December 28, 2017, just after midnight in New Castle, Delaware, police found Antoine Terry lying on the sidewalk unresponsive due to multiple gunshot wounds. He died from his injuries. The police later arrested Terry's friend, Shaheed Matthews, for the murder.

In 2019, Matthews was tried for murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. No direct physical evidence linked Matthews to Terry's shooting. Instead, the State relied on circumstantial evidence-including evidence from Matthews's cellphone, witness testimony, video camera footage of varying quality, and gunshot residue of an unknown vintage found on Matthews's jacket. On direct appeal, this Court affirmed Matthews's convictions.

Matthews then filed a pro se motion for postconviction relief in the Superior Court. He claimed that his trial counsel was ineffective on four grounds. The Superior Court denied Matthews's motion and this appeal followed. On appeal, Matthews limits the scope of his claim for relief to one ground: that trial counsel's failure to move to suppress the evidence obtained from his cellphone constituted ineffective assistance of counsel.

With the State's entire case dependent on circumstantial evidence, it was essential for trial counsel to suppress any inappropriately derived evidence. Our review leads us to conclude that there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different if Matthews's trial counsel had moved to suppress the evidence obtained from his cellphone. Therefore, we reverse his convictions and remand to the Superior Court for a new trial without the taint of the improperly seized evidence.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND^[2]

A. The Shooting of Antoine Terry

Antoine Terry and Shaheed Matthews were friends.^[3] Matthews frequently stayed with his girlfriend, Devon Johnson. Johnson's residence was located at 227 Parma Avenue in New Castle, Delaware.^[4] The residence was in a "high crime area" with "a lot of shootings."^[5] On December 27, 2017, Terry, Matthews, and Johnson spent the evening together at Johnson's house watching a basketball game and eating Chinese food.^[6] Johnson testified that around 10:30 p.m., she went upstairs to use the restroom and grab additional layers of clothing because she planned to drive Matthews to the home of his longtime friend, Chanelle Brooks.^[7] She told the jury that when she came back downstairs, Matthews and Terry were gone.^[8] She testified that she waited in the house for Matthews to call her to pick him up and that she left to pick him up at a nearby church around 10:45 p.m.^[9] She then drove him to Brooks's house.^[10]

At 10:42 p.m., the New Castle County Police Department received a call from a resident on Briarcliff Drive, which runs parallel to Parma Avenue.^[11] The resident reported hearing five or six gunshots.^[12] Around the same time, another resident from 243 Parma Avenue called the police and reported being awakened by "three or four" gunshots.^[13] Multiple officers responded to the area.^[14] The police did not immediately locate a shooting victim.^[15] Shortly after midnight, however, police found Terry's body on the sidewalk between 243 and 245 Parma Avenue.^[16] He was "cold and stiff" with multiple gunshot wounds.^[17] They observed that he had "a hoodie around his head" and "a couple marks in the back of his jacket."^[18]

B. The Police Interview Matthews and Search His Cellphone

On December 28, 2017, two detectives from the New Castle County Police Department interviewed Matthews about Terry's death.^[19] During the interview, the detectives asked Matthews about his cellphone. At first, he told them that he did not have a cellphone.^[20] Matthews ultimately relented and provided them with a cellphone number.^[21] When asked why he initially refused, he told them that he "didn't want to give the number out."^[22] The detectives then had the following exchange with Matthews:

[Unknown Detective]: Well, listen, here's one thing I want to go over with you, okay? So everybody that we've talked to, okay, uh, I know you're kind of like funny about your cellphone, and you don't want to give me the cellphone number.

[Matthews]: You can, you can have it [unintelligible][.]

[Unknown Detective]: Well, here's the thing; we have a search warrant for it.

[Matthews]: Okay.

[Unknown Detective]: Okay? So, uh, we're going to take it anyway.

[Matthews]: Yeah, you can [unintelligible][.]

[Unknown Detective]: Um, and I don't want you to think there's any ill will behind it. [Matthews]: Mm-hmm.

[Unknown Detective]: But what happens is if, if we know somebody had contact with him, we take their cellphone. And it's not saying that we think you did anything wrong.

[Matthews]: Uh, I don't have it on me, but you can, you can definitely have the number.

[Unknown Detective]: Okay. Where is, where is the physical cellphone at?

[Matthews]: In town, uh, at my brother's house.

[Unknown Detective]: Okay. Um, we're going to need to get [ahold] of that.

[Matthews]: I got to buy a whole new phone?

[Unknown Detective]: No, no, no, so here's what happens, um, we get the phone. We do what's called a forensic examination.

[Matthews]: Yeah, that's -

[Unknown Detective]: Basically hook it up to a computer.

[Matthews]: Oh, okay, alright.

[Unknown Detective]: Um, they dump the contents of it, and then we give it right back to you.^[23]

At trial, Detective Eugene Reid, one of the lead detectives on the case, confirmed that the police seized Matthews's cellphone: "we had a search warrant to collect his [cellphone], and we collected that from him at his residence."^[24] In fact, the police did not secure a search warrant until the following day.^[25]

On June 18, 2018, a grand jury indicted Matthews for first-degree murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, possession or control of a firearm by a person prohibited, and purchase of ammunition by a person prohibited (which was dropped by the State).^[26] The possession or control of a firearm by a person prohibited charge was severed and proceeded to a bench trial.^[27]

C. The Trial of Shaheed Matthews

Matthews was tried for first-degree murder and for possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in April 2019. At the outset, the State acknowledged that its case was "entirely circumstantial."^[28] On numerous occasions throughout the trial, the State both referred to and asked witnesses about the evidence derived from Matthews's cellphone.

1. The State's Opening Statement

The State repeatedly referred to evidence obtained from Matthews's cellphone in its opening statement. For example:

• "[Y]ou will hear evidence taking the form of video surveillance, [cellphone] evidence, and witnesses."^[29]

• "[Y]ou will also hear evidence pertaining to the defendant's [cellphone] .... And you will hear the contents of the defendant's phone as it pertains to the evening of December 27th, 2017, into the following morning on the 28th."^[30]

• "[G]oing with the defendant's phone, ladies and gentlemen, you will hear evidence beginning with 7:36 p.m. on the evening that Antoine Terry was murdered, and you will hear evidence that the defendant texted Antoine Terry."^[31]

• "And you will hear additional [cellphone] evidence taken from the defendant's [cellphone] where we expect you will hear that the defendant called his girlfriend, Devon Johnson, at 10:45 p.m. They have a 29-second conversation."^[32] • "Going back to the defendant's [cellphone] again, you will hear much evidence from that where you will hear evidence that the defendant calls a gentleman named Kevin Scott."^[33]

• "You will also see from the records that are discussed that the evidence will show the defendant made zero calls or zero text messages to Antoine Terry after they parted ways the evening of December 27."^[34]

• "[I]t's the State's burden to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt . . . that the defendant was the one who murdered Antoine Terry . . . through the totality of the evidence of the defendant's [cellphone], the statements from the witnesses ...."^[35]

2. The Cause of Terry's Death &Related Physical Evidence

The medical examiner assigned to the case testified that Terry's cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds.^[36] She acknowledged that the State "[did not] know the time of [Terry's] death."^[37] The police never found the murder weapon.^[38] Although the Delaware State

Police's firearm identification expert was able to identify the caliber class of the bullet fragments found at the scene-.38 caliber-he acknowledged that a ".38 caliber class includes several cartridge designations" that are all "very close in diameter" and can include "all of your 9 millimeters, .380's, your .38's, and .357 magnum[,]" all of which are "very close in diameter."^[39] He noted that there are many types of firearms that could fire a .38 caliber bullet and he therefore could not identify the specific type of firearm that...