Terreros v. State, 312 A.3d 651

In 2019, Jose Terreros was left to watch his girlfriend's children; upon her return, her four-year-old daughter alleged Terreros licked her vagina.
The mother found internet searches on Terreros's phone related to detecting the rape of a child and preserving forensic evidence; she reported this to police.
Police obtained a warrant to search Terreros’s phone, which authorized extracting nearly all categories of phone data, with no date limitation; this led to a forensic search yielding massive data, including the incriminating web searches.
Terreros moved to suppress the evidence, arguing the warrant was a general warrant lacking particularity and temporal limitations; the motion was denied.
At trial, Terreros was found guilty of Child Sexual Abuse and Dangerous Crime Against a Child, but acquitted of First Degree Rape; he moved for acquittal based on inconsistent verdicts, which the trial court denied without addressing his state constitutional arguments.
On appeal, Terreros challenged both the denial of the suppression motion and the inconsistent verdicts under the Delaware Constitution.

Issue	Terreros's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Whether the cell phone search warrant was a general warrant violating the particularity requirement	Warrant authorized an indiscriminate search; lacked particularity and temporal limits, exceeding probable cause	Warrant listed categories and (allegedly) had a temporal limit based on the affidavit and processing software	Warrant was a general warrant; evidence must be suppressed
Did the trial court err by not suppressing the phone evidence	Search was essentially of the entire phone, not tied to evidence sought	Search was sufficiently particular as categories were listed	Superior Court erred; all evidence from search suppressed
Whether inconsistent verdicts violated Article I, Section 4 of the Delaware Constitution	Delaware’s constitutional/jury trial protections preclude inconsistent verdicts, in line with common law	Verdicts permissible under federal and state precedent allowing jury lenity	Remanded: trial court must address the state constitutional issue after adequate briefing
Whether erroneous admission of search evidence was harmless	Evidence was critical; couldn't be deemed harmless	No specific counterargument advanced on harmlessness	State failed to show harmlessness beyond reasonable doubt

Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) (police must obtain a warrant to search digital contents of a cell phone outside exigent circumstances)
Carpenter v. United States, 138 S.Ct. 2206 (2018) (warrant required for historical cell-site location information; individuals retain privacy interest)
Wheeler v. State, 135 A.3d 282 (Del. 2016) (digital data search warrants require as much particularity as circumstances allow, to prevent general searches)
Buckham v. State, 185 A.3d 1 (Del. 2018) (warrant must not exceed scope of probable cause with digital data)
Taylor v. State, 260 A.3d 602 (Del. 2021) (open-ended data search warrants amount to unconstitutional exploratory rummaging)