State v. Tony Gonzalez, 254 A.3d 813

Background

On January 21, 2012, Tony Gonzalez forced entry into Patricia Delomba’s home and fired a handgun, fatally wounding Carl Cunningham; Delomba identified Gonzalez as the shooter and gave police Gonzalez’s phone number and consent to search her phone.
Police located Gonzalez early the next morning through a controlled phone call placed by his brother and arrested him in his mother’s home without a warrant; officers discovered a cell phone on his person at headquarters.
Police later obtained an administrative warrant served on MetroPCS for call records (call log) and a search warrant for Gonzalez’s phone; the MetroPCS call log plus internet searches produced identities of subscribers tied to numbers in the log.
Gonzalez was first tried and convicted in 2013, but this Court vacated that conviction in State v. Gonzalez because of the unlawful warrantless arrest; he was retried in 2017, convicted again, and appealed.
Pretrial, Gonzalez moved to suppress the seized phone and any derivative evidence; the trial justice suppressed the phone itself as fruit of the illegal arrest but denied suppression of the identities/testimony of individuals identified from the MetroPCS call log under the independent-source doctrine.
Additional issues on appeal: (1) challenge to the jury array for alleged under-representation of Hispanics (fair cross-section claim); (2) denial of motions for mistrial/passing the case after a witness referenced a prior trial; and (3) an unpreserved Brady claim about a withheld recording of the controlled phone call.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Motion to suppress identities/testimony derived from phone records	Identities and testimony were obtained independently via a lawful administrative warrant on MetroPCS and internet investigative work; therefore admissible under independent-source doctrine	Phone and any derivative evidence must be suppressed as fruits of an unlawful warrantless arrest and seizure of Gonzalez’s phone	Court affirmed: phone suppressed, but identities/testimony admissible — they were discovered independently via MetroPCS call log and internet identification.
Motion to discharge jury / fair-cross-section challenge	No prima facie Duren showing; State has no evidence of systematic exclusion and venire statistics were not presented	Jury pool under-represented Hispanics; impaneled jury not a fair cross-section warranting discharge or change of venue	Court affirmed denial: Gonzalez failed to meet Duren’s three-prong test (no venire statistics and no proof of systematic exclusion).
Motions to pass case / mistrial after witness referenced prior trial	Any reference to a prior trial was minor and curable by prompt curative instructions; mistrial not required	Witness’s two references to the prior trial were incurably prejudicial and warranted passing the case/mistrial	Court affirmed denial: trial justice did not abuse discretion; curative instructions were adequate and judge had the "ringside seat" to assess prejudice.
Alleged Brady violation (recording of controlled call)	State: (procedural) issue was not preserved for appeal	Gonzalez: State withheld a recording of the controlled call in violation of Brady	Court declined to consider this claim as it was not raised below and is therefore waived under the raise-or-waive rule.

Key Cases Cited

State v. Gonzalez, 136 A.3d 1131 (R.I. 2016) (prior opinion vacating conviction due to unlawful warrantless arrest)
State v. Ducharme, 601 A.2d 937 (R.I. 1991) (independent-source doctrine permits admission of evidence learned independently of an illegal search)
Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (U.S. 1963) (exclusionary rule and its attenuation/independent-source limits)
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (U.S. 1963) (prosecutor’s duty to disclose exculpatory/impeachment evidence)
Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357 (U.S. 1979) (three-part fair cross-section test for jury venires)
United States v. Royal, 174 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 1999) (absolute-disparity approach for measuring venire representativeness)
Berghuis v. Smith, 559 U.S. 314 (U.S. 2010) (systematic exclusion must be shown, not explained by assorted contributing factors)
State v. LaPlante, 962 A.2d 63 (R.I. 2009) (trial justice’s broad discretion in ruling on mistrial/passing the case)