v. Thompson, 2021 CO 15

Victim found shot dead in motel room; Asha Thompson was identified by a witness and arrested at a different motel after an anonymous tip.
Police obtained an initial warrant to search the motel room that broadly authorized seizure and forensic downloading of cell phones; Thompson’s phone was seized and sent to a forensic lab.
While the phone was en route but before download was complete, this court decided People v. Coke (holding broad cellphone warrants violate the Fourth Amendment particularity requirement).
The lab completed a full data download months after the defective warrant; the People later obtained a second warrant to search the same phone after the download and produced the downloaded contents to defense.
Thompson moved to suppress the phone data under the Fourth Amendment and Coke; the trial court granted suppression, rejecting the People’s good‑faith and independent‑source arguments. The Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed the suppression order, though the majority accepted interlocutory jurisdiction; two justices dissented (disputing both jurisdiction and the sufficiency of the record on independence).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
1. Did the initial cell‑phone warrant comply with Fourth Amendment particularity?	Warrant was valid enough to authorize seizure and download.	The initial warrant was overbroad and violated Coke and the Fourth Amendment.	Held: Initial warrant lacked required particularity; search violated the Fourth Amendment.
2. Does the independent source doctrine allow admission of phone data?	Second warrant was Coke‑compliant and independent of the first search, so doctrine applies.	People failed to prove the second warrant was independent; doctrine inapplicable.	Held: People failed to meet their burden; independent source doctrine does not apply.
3. Does the good‑faith exception permit admission despite a defective warrant?	Officers relied in good faith on a magistrate‑issued warrant.	Existing caselaw (including Coke) put police on notice of particularity requirements; good faith fails.	Held: Good‑faith exception rejected.
4. May this court exercise interlocutory jurisdiction under §16‑12‑102(2)/C.A.R. 4.1?	People certified the appeal and the evidence’s substantiality; jurisdiction proper.	Certification was unsupported by the record; court should dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.	Held: Majority accepted jurisdiction here; Justice Márquez (and partly Justice Boatright) would dismiss the appeal for lack of adequate certification.

People v. Coke, 461 P.3d 508 (Colo. 2020) (cellphone searches require particularity; broad authorizations violate Fourth Amendment)
Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533 (1988) (independent‑source doctrine: later lawful seizure must be genuinely independent of earlier illegality)
People v. Schoondermark, 759 P.2d 715 (Colo. 1988) (prosecution bears burden to prove independent source by preponderance)
Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018) (heightened privacy interests in cell‑phone data)
Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463 (1976) (general warrants permitting exploratory searches are prohibited)