Commonwealth v. Knoble , 188 A.3d 1199 ( 2018 )

J-S15026-18
2018 Pa. Super. 135
COMMONWEALTH OF : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
PENNSYLVANIA : PENNSYLVANIA
:
:
v. :
:
:
JEFFREY SCOTT KNOBLE, JR. :
: No. 2671 EDA 2017
Appellant :
Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence February 1, 2017
In the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County Criminal Division
at No(s): CP-48-CR-0001405-2015
BEFORE: STABILE, J., DUBOW, J., and FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E.
OPINION BY DUBOW, J.: FILED MAY 24, 2018
Appellant, Jeffrey Scott Knoble, Jr., appeals from the Judgment of
Sentence imposed after a jury convicted him of two counts each of Terroristic
Threats and Firearms Not to be Carried Without a License, and one count each
of First-Degree Murder, Criminal Mischief, and Unauthorized Use of an
Automobile. Appellant challenges the court’s joinder of three separate
criminal dockets for trial and the denial of his Motion to Suppress. After careful
review, we affirm.
The facts and relevant procedural history, as gleaned from the record,
are as follows. On March 10, 2015, at 7:53 AM, Octavia Douglas, Appellant’s
then-girlfriend, contacted Phillipsburg Police to report that Appellant had taken
her rental car without permission. She also called Appellant’s mother, Ms.
Knoble, and told her that Appellant was going to crash the rental car. Ms.
Knoble contacted Appellant and Appellant threatened to shoot police officers.
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Ms. Knoble convinced Appellant to stop driving Ms. Douglas’s car and arranged
to pick him up in Easton.
When Ms. Knoble arrived in Easton, Appellant left Ms. Douglas’s car
running with the door open and entered Ms. Knoble’s car, laying a firearm
across his lap. Appellant told Ms. Knoble that he had shot and killed someone,
and continued to threaten to shoot police officers. Ms. Knoble told Appellant
that she would not permit him in her home and subsequently drove him to his
grandmother’s house in Riegelsville, Pennsylvania.
A few hours later, Pennsylvania State Police received a report of an
abandoned vehicle and discovered Ms. Douglas’s rental vehicle running and
unoccupied. The vehicle had been shot four times: three times in the driver’s
side front door and one time in the driver’s side passenger door.
On March 11, 2015, at approximately 2:00 AM, Appellant began
communicating with Andrew “Beep” White (the “Victim”). Because Ms. Knoble
refused to let Appellant in her house, Appellant requested to stay at the
Victim’s apartment for the night, but the Victim refused. Ultimately, the Victim
agreed to rent a room for Appellant at the Quality Inn in Easton.
Later that morning, Appellant again contacted Ms. Knoble and asked her
to pick him up on Northampton Street in Easton. When Ms. Knoble arrived,
Appellant entered her car and reported that he had shot and killed someone
and that “they were safe now.” Trial Ct. Op., 3/10/16, at 2. Ms. Knoble told
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police that Appellant showed her a cell phone video that depicted Appellant in
a room along with the body of a nude male surrounded by blood.1
About an hour later, Ms. Knoble contacted the Easton Police Department
(“EPD”) to report that Appellant had told her that he had killed someone and
that, based on Appellant’s statements to her, she believed he intended to
shoot and kill police officers. The EPD began searching for Appellant. During
their search, Ms. Knoble informed police that Appellant continued to contact
her via text messages and phone calls and repeatedly threatened to shoot
police officers. As a result of this information, when the EPD arrested
Appellant, the Commonwealth charged him with two counts of Terroristic
Threats at Docket No. CP-48-CR-0001405-2015 (“Docket No. 1”).2
During the course of their search for Appellant,3 EPD obtained
information that Appellant was in Ms. Knoble’s Easton home. Police converged
on the home and, through negotiations, Appellant surrendered that afternoon.
Police then conducted a protective sweep and, with Ms. Knoble’s consent,
subsequently searched the home. They seized two cell phones: the Victim’s
white Samsung S5 cell phone; and Appellant’s Kyocera cell phone, which he
had used to communicate with Ms.Knoble and on which he had shown her the
video of himself with the Victim’s deceased body. Police officers also seized a
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1 See also N.T. Suppression Hrg., 10/13/15, at 46.
2 One count each of 18 Pa.C.S. § 2706(a)(1) and 18 Pa.C.S. § 2706(a)(3).
3EPD’s search for Appellant required the lockdown of a local elementary school
and daycare.
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semi-automatic .40-caliber firearm; a dark-colored pea coat; a cell phone
charger; a backpack; a ball cap; various clothes; and ammunition.
Later in the day on March 11, 2015, EPD received a call from Priscilla
High, reporting that she was concerned about her friend, the Victim. After
receiving a report that the Victim was last seen the previous night entering
the Quality Inn in Easton, EPD officers went to the Quality Inn. The desk clerk
confirmed that the Victim had checked in to Room 418, and provided police
with a copy of the Victim’s driver’s license and his room receipt. Police
proceeded to Room 418 and found the Victim’s naked body. An autopsy
determined the Victim had died from a single gunshot wound to the head. The
coroner ruled his death a homicide.
Surveillance video from the fourth floor of the Quality Inn showed
Appellant and the Victim entering Room 418 together in the early hours of the
morning of March 11, 2015. The video also showed Appellant leaving the
room at approximately 8:00 AM wearing the grey coat the Victim had been
wearing earlier that night. The surveillance footage shows that no one other
than Appellant entered or exited the room until the arrival of police later that
day.
Based upon this evidence, and the evidence indicating that the firearm
found in Ms. Knoble’s home was the weapon used to commit the homicide and
to shoot Ms. Douglas’s rental car, EPD arrested Appellant pursuant to a
warrant on March 18, 2015. The Commonwealth ultimately charged Appellant
with First-Degree Murder, Robbery, and two counts of Firearms Not to be
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Carried Without a License at Docket No. CP-48-CR-0001413-2015 (“Docket
No. 2”).4
On April 13, 2015, EPD obtained a warrant to search the contents of
Appellant’s cell phone. That same day, EPD Inspector Dan Reagan provided
Appellant’s cell phone to Jonathan Langton, a digital forensic analyst assigned
to the Petzold Digital Forensics Laboratory. Using forensic software, Langton
extracted data from it, identifying multiple still images. One photo of
particular note depicted the Victim lying face down on a bed in a pool of blood
with a wound on his head.5 At that time, the software did not uncover any
video images on Appellant’s cell phone.
On June 24, 2015, the Commonwealth filed a Motion for Joinder of the
Informations filed at Docket No. 1 and Docket No. 2. On July 24, 2015,
Appellant filed a Response to the Motion for Joinder and an Omnibus Pretrial
Motion. After a hearing, on September 9, 2015, the court issued an Order
joining Docket No. 1 and Docket No. 2 for trial. Appellant subsequently filed
two Supplemental Pretrial Motions requesting, inter alia, the suppression of
the photographic evidence obtained from the search of his cell phone.
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418 Pa.C.S § 2502(a); 18 Pa.C.S. § 3701(a)(1); and 18 Pa.C.S. § 6106(a)(1),
respectively.
5 According to Langton’s analysis of the file, Appellant took the picture on
March 11, 2015 at 5:45 AM, and attempted to delete it at 12:28 PM that same
day. This image is a separate photograph, not part of a video file. N.T. Trial,
1/26/17 at 22-23.
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On September 16, 2015, the court arraigned Appellant on separate
charges of Possession of a Firearm Prohibited, Criminal Mischief, and
Unauthorized Use of an Automobile6 at Docket No. CP-48-CR-0003844-2015
(“Docket No. 3”) arising from his actions on the morning of March 10, 2015.
On December 15, 2015, the Commonwealth filed a Motion for Joinder of
Informations seeking to join Docket No. 3 with the previously-joined Docket
No. 1 and Docket No. 2. After a hearing, on March 7, 2016, the trial court
granted the Commonwealth’s Motion for Joinder. It denied Appellant’s
Omnibus Pretrial Motions on March 10, 2016.7
Meanwhile, on December 16, 2015, Appellant requested that the
Commonwealth provide digital copies of the data retrieved from Appellant’s
cell phone, in April 2015, to his expert. The Commonwealth informed
Appellant that it had already turned over all requested materials and advised
that Appellant could arrange with Inspector Reagan to conduct their own
examinations of certain cell phones. Thus, in early January 2016, at the
request of Barry Golazeski, Appellant’s expert, Inspector Reagan asked that
Langton provide the raw data he extracted from Appellant’s cell phone to
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618 Pa.C.S. § 6105(a)(1); 18 Pa.C.S. § 3304(a)(1); and 18 Pa.C.S. § 3928(a),
respectively.
7 Thus, the court deemed the photograph found on Appellant’s cell phone
admissible. Appellant does not challenge the validity of the April 13, 2015
search warrant in the instant appeal.
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Golazeski.8 Langton attempted to provide Golazeski with the raw data, but
was unable to because the hard drive where he had stored the data had
crashed.
Langton believed that the only way to comply with the request of
Appellant’s expert was to re-extract the data from Appellant’s cell phone.
Thus, on January 8, 2016, Inspector Reagan took the cell phone, which had
continuously been in police custody since its seizure in March 2015, back to
the Petzold Laboratory where Langton conducted a second extraction on
January 12, 2016. Police did not obtain a new search warrant in connection
with this extraction.
The second extraction process took longer than the first, and identified
additional data. Langton was able to recover additional evidence during the
second extraction because the software originally used had been updated.9
Using the updated software, Langton recovered two video files depicting
Appellant in a hotel room with the deceased Victim.
The videos retrieved in the second search existed as files separate and
independent from each other and separate and independent from the still
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8 Langton testified that Golazeski did not want the report that Langton had
created from the data extracted from Appellant’s cell phone in April 2015.
Rather, Golazeski wanted to analyze the raw data itself. N.T. Suppression
Hrg., 10/25/16, at 20.
9 Langton testified that the software he used, the Cellebrite digital forensic
suite, updates automatically approximately six to ten times per year. N.T.
Suppression Hrg., 10/25/16, at 14.
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photographs discovered during the first search. The first video was
approximately 25 seconds long and depicted Appellant in what appeared to be
Room 418 of the Quality Inn. The video showed Appellant with the Victim,
who was bound and appeared to be deceased as Appellant narrates the video
and pans the camera over himself and the Victim. The second video is close
to one minute long, and depicts the Victim face down covered in blood in what
appeared to be Room 418. On the video Appellant references a bullet hole in
the Victim’s head. Images of Appellant and the Victim are present in the
second video as well as the first. Langton could not determine when Appellant
had made the videos, but concluded that Appellant attempted to delete them
at 12:36 PM and 12:37 PM on March 11, 2015.
Langton provided the raw data retrieved from the second extraction to
Appellant’s expert on January 14, 2016.
On July 15, 2016, Appellant filed a Third Supplemental Omnibus Pretrial
Motion seeking to suppress the two video files obtained from the second
search of his cell phone. Appellant alleged that law enforcement agents of the
Petzold Digital Forensics Laboratory performed the second extraction without
a warrant and without any applicable exception to the warrant requirement in
violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches
and seizures. See Third Supplemental Omnibus Pretrial Motion, 7/15/16, at
¶¶ 16-17. Appellant further argued that, to the extent police ever secured a
warrant to search his cell phone, they did not support the warrant with
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probable cause. See id. at ¶ 18. Thus, Appellant sought the suppression of
evidence obtained from both data extractions.
The suppression court held a hearing on October 25, 2016. Inspector
Reagan and Langton testified extensively about the second extraction of data
that revealed the videos.
On December 6, 2016, the court denied Appellant’s Third Supplemental
Omnibus Pretrial Motion, finding that the original search warrant obtained for
Appellant’s cell phone was supported by probable cause and authorized both
the first and second data extractions.
Appellant’s jury trial began on January 9, 2017. Relevant to the instant
appeal, the Commonwealth presented the testimony of Inspector Reagan and
Langton, as well as that of M. Knoble. Ms. Knoble specifically testified about
the timeline of events and the video of the Victim that Appellant had shown
her.
On January 31, 2017, the jury convicted Appellant of two counts each
of Terroristic Threats and Firearms Not to be Carried Without a License, and
one count each of First-Degree Murder, Criminal Mischief, and Unauthorized
Use of an Automobile. Appellant waived his right to a Pre-Sentence
Investigation.
On February 1, 2017, the court sentenced Appellant to life imprisonment
for his First-Degree Murder conviction, and an aggregate sentence of 9½ to
28 years’ imprisonment for the Firearms Not to be Carried Without a License,
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Terroristic Threats, Criminal Mischief, and Unauthorized Use of an Automobile
convictions.
Appellant filed a timely appeal from his Judgment of Sentence. Both
Appellant and the trial court complied with Pa.R.A.P. 1925.10
Appellant raises the following two issues on appeal:
1. The [t]rial [c]ourt erred in joining the Information charging
Appellant with [T]erroristic [T]hreats and the Information
charging Appellant with [C]riminal [M]ischief with the
Information charging Appellant with [C]riminal [Homicide].
2. The [t]rial [c]ourt erred in failing to suppress the videos
obtained from Appellant’s cell phone in January 2016.
Appellant’s Brief at 4.
Joinder
In his first issue, Appellant challenges the trial court’s joinder of his three
Criminal Informations. In particular, Appellant claims that joining the offenses
prejudiced him because the charged offenses were not based on the same act
or transaction, and their joinder allowed the jury to hear evidence against him
that would not have been admissible in separate trials. Id. at 21.
“Whether to join or sever offenses for trial is within the trial court’s
discretion and will not be reversed on appeal absent a manifest abuse thereof,
or prejudice and clear injustice to the defendant.” Commonwealth v.
Wholaver, 989 A.2d 883, 888 (Pa. 2010).
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10Rather than submit a separate Rule 1925(a) Opinion, the trial court directed
this Court’s attention to its September 9, 2015, March 7, 2016, March 10,
2016, and December 16, 2016 Opinions as the places in the record where the
court set forth the reasons for its decisions.
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Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure 582(A)(1) provides that
distinct offenses which do not arise out of the same act or transaction may be
tried together if the “evidence of each of the offenses would be admissible in
a separate trial for the other and is capable of separation by the jury so that
there is no danger of confusion[] or the offenses charged are based on the
same act or transaction.” Pa.R.Crim P. 582(A)(1)(a)-(b). If the trial court
finds that the evidence is admissible and the jury can separate the charges,
the court must also consider whether consolidation would unduly prejudice
the defendant. Commonwealth v. Thomas, 879 A.2d 246, 260 (Pa. Super.
2005).
While evidence of other criminal behavior is not admissible to
demonstrate a defendant’s propensity to commit crimes, it may be admissible
to prove “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge,
identity[,] or absence of mistake or accident so long as the probative value of
the evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect.” Commonwealth v. Smith, 47
A.3d 862, 867 (Pa. Super. 2012) (citing Pa.R.E. 404(b)(2), (3)).
Another exception is the common law “same transaction” or “res gestae”
exception. Commonwealth v. Brown, 52 A.3d 320, 325-26 (Pa. Super.
2012). This exception is applicable in “situations where the distinct crimes
were part of a chain or sequence of events which formed the history of the
case and were part of its natural development.” Id. In other words, the
exception applies to prior bad acts “which are so clearly and inextricably mixed
up with the history of the guilty act itself as to form part of one chain of
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relevant circumstances, and so could not be excluded on the presentation of
the case before the jury without the evidence being rendered thereby
unintelligible.” Id. at 330–31 (emphasis omitted).
In the instant case, the trial court first considered the Commonwealth’s
Motion for Joinder of Appellant’s Criminal Homicide and related charges with
his Terroristic Threats charges, i.e., Docket No. 1 and Docket No. 2. The court
found that each of the offenses was “so interwoven that the [I]nformations
must be joined in order to demonstrate the history and natural development
of the facts.” Trial Ct. Op., 9/9/15, at 2 (unpaginated). The court explained
that “[t]hese two cases occurred almost simultaneously, were investigated
simultaneously, and share common facts[.]” Id. Therefore, the court
concluded that the Commonwealth demonstrated that these offenses
“occurred within the same transaction or occurrence.” Id. The court also
found that “denying the Commonwealth the opportunity to present the overall
picture and natural sequence of events by trying these offenses separately
would confuse and mislead the jury.” Id. Thus, the court concluded that the
probative value of joinder outweighed the potential prejudice to Appellant.
Next, the court considered the Commonwealth’s Motion for Joinder of
Appellant’s Criminal Mischief and Unauthorized Use of an Automobile charges
(Docket No. 3) with the previously joined Criminal Homicide and Terroristic
Threats charges (Docket No. 1 and Docket No. 2). The court’s explanation for
its decision to grant this Motion for Joinder was similar to its prior explanation.
See generally Trial Ct. Op., 3/7/16. In addition, the court noted that
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Appellant’s mother “continuously contacted both [Appellant] and law
enforcement in such a short amount of time, regarding all three cases, which
helps link these crimes as one sequence of events and not as distinct.” Id. at
2 (unpaginated). The court specifically concluded that “the elements of the
crimes are straightforward and will not be difficult for a jury to distinguish.”
Id.
Following our review, we agree with the trial court. Given the timeline
of events and the interrelatedness of Appellant’s crimes as described above,
including his use of the same weapon to shoot at Ms. Douglas’s vehicle and to
kill the victim, the evidence of each crime would have been admissible in the
trials for the other offenses so that the jury could fully understand the natural
development of the case. Thus, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse
its discretion in granting the Commonwealth’s Motions for Joinder. Appellant
is not entitled to relief on this issue.
Suppression of Cell Phone Video Evidence
In his second issue, Appellant challenges the denial of his Motion to
Suppress the video evidence obtained during the second search of his cell
phone.
We review the trial court’s decision to deny a motion to suppress to
determine “whether the suppression court’s factual findings are supported by
the record and whether the legal conclusions drawn from those facts are
correct.” Commonwealth v. Freeman, 150 A.3d 32, 34 (Pa. Super. 2016).
Further, “[b]ecause the Commonwealth prevailed before the suppression
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court, we may consider only the evidence of the Commonwealth and so much
of the evidence for the defense as remains uncontradicted when read in the
context of the record as a whole.” Id. We are bound by the suppression
court’s factual findings where they are supported by the record, and we may
reverse only if the court’s legal conclusions are erroneous. Id. at 35. Because
this Court’s mandate is to determine if the suppression court properly applied
the law to the facts, our scope of review is plenary. Id.
Appellant claims that the “Commonwealth’s warrantless search of the
[c]ell [p]hone and extraction of the raw data therefrom . . . violated
[Appellant’s] privacy rights[.]” Appellant’s Brief at 22. Analogizing the second
search of his cell phone to the search of a home, Appellant argues that the
second search, which took place nine months after police conducted the initial
search, was “well outside the ‘outer limit’ of any ‘reasonable delay’ between
the issuance and execution” of the authorizing warrant. Id. at 24 (citing
Pa.R.Crim.P. 205(A)(4)(a)) (“Each search warrant shall be signed by the
issuing authority and shall . . . direct that the search be executed . . . within
a specified period of time, not to exceed 2 days from the time of issuance[.]”).
Appellant argues in the alternative that he did not consent to the second
search of his phone using updated software that enhanced the
Commonwealth’s ability to extract data. Id. at 26. He posits that he may not
have wanted his expert to review the extracted data had he known that, in
order to do so, the Commonwealth would extract additional and extremely
prejudicial evidence. Id. at 28. Last, Appellant disputes that the introduction
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of the two videos was harmless error. Id. at 29. Appellant, therefore,
concludes that the court erred in not suppressing the seized video files. Id.
at 25.
The Commonwealth avers that the April 2015 search warrant authorized
the subsequent January 2016 search and extraction of data from Appellant’s
cell phone. In the alternative, the Commonwealth asserts that Appellant
consented to the search because the EPD conducted the search pursuant to
Appellant’s request for information.11
It is well-settled that the extraction of data from a cell phone constitutes
a search that requires police to obtain a search warrant prior to extraction.
Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014).
It is generally the case that police must speedily execute searches
conducted pursuant to a warrant because the decision to issue a warrant
“must be based on facts which are closely related in time to the date the
warrant is issued.” Commonwealth v. Shaw, 281 A.2d 897, 899 (Pa. 1971).
However, our Supreme Court has recognized that “[t]here are times when the
facts and circumstance[s] presented to the magistrate [in support of the
warrant] remain unchanged long after the warrant is issued.”
Commonwealth v. McCants, 299 A.2d 283, 286 (Pa. 1973). In instances
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11 Commonwealth’s Brief at 20, 24-27.
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where the facts and circumstances upon which the search warrant was based
remain unchanged with the passing of time, probable cause still exists.12
On April 13, 2015, after demonstrating the existence of probable cause,
the Commonwealth obtained a warrant to extract data from Appellant’s cell
phone. That same day, Langton extracted data from Appellant’s cell phone
pursuant to that valid warrant. Nine months later, Langton conducted a
second extraction in order to fulfill Appellant’s expert’s request to review the
raw data.
Here, this Court’s review of the record reveals that the facts and
circumstances supporting the issuance of the April 13, 2015 search warrant
remained unchanged at the time of the second extraction. EPD had legally
seized Appellant’s cell phone from Ms. Knoble’s residence with her consent in
March 2015. EPD then secured the phone to ensure that it remained in its
original condition and that no one could alter its contents. Appellant’s cell
phone was in police custody during the entirety of the relevant period and
remained unalterable. It is, thus, evident that the facts and circumstances
presented to the magistrate who issued the initial search warrant did not
change. Accordingly, we conclude that the April 13, 2015 search warrant
authorized the subsequent search and obviated the need for the
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12 Cf. U.S. v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800 (1974) (upholding, in the context of a
warrantless search incident to arrest, the validity of a subsequent search of
the defendant’s property where the initial search was legal and the property
had remained in police custody in the intervening period).
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Commonwealth to obtain another warrant.13 Appellant is, therefore, not
entitled to relief on this issue.
Judgment of Sentence affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 5/24/18
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13Having so concluded, we decline to address the Commonwealth’s contention
that Appellant’s expert’s request for raw data indicated Appellant’s consent to
the subsequent search of his phone.
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