A 2025 robbery conviction out of San Jose has been wiped out after California’s Sixth District Court of Appeal ruled that police violated the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights by pulling his real-time cellphone location from Verizon without a warrant. The case against Marcos Andres Andrade now heads back to the trial court, where a judge and attorneys must untangle what, if any, evidence can survive now that the phone data itself has been thrown out.
The appellate panel reversed a prior order from Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Erik Johnson, who had denied Andrade’s motion to suppress the cellphone data, according to The Mercury News. San Jose police investigators had requested Andrade’s real-time cellphone tracking data from Verizon without first obtaining a warrant, the outlet reported, and the appeals court found that doing so crossed a constitutional line.
How Police Tracked Andrade to an Alum Rock Home
The case traces back to March 1, 2022, when Andrade and Jesus Ivan Larios were suspected of brandishing guns and robbing two people of their car in San Jose, per the Mercury News report. Detectives tracked the victims’ stolen phone signals to an apartment complex on Fontaine Street, where they found the stolen car abandoned. A separate phone signal from a victim’s device led detectives to a home in the Alum Rock area where Andrade was listed as a resident.
Police then placed Andrade’s home and a car identified as a getaway vehicle under surveillance. According to the same report, officers faxed an emergency disclosure form to Verizon requesting both historical and real-time cell site information for Andrade’s phone, and Verizon provided the data within about two hours. While detectives reviewed that information, Detective Amanda Estantino prepared search and arrest warrant applications, which a judge approved roughly four hours later. Police arrested Andrade that night, and a search of the home and car turned up one victim’s purse and a gun holster. A separate search of Larios’ home turned up the stolen car’s keys and the victims’ phones, the Mercury News noted. Larios was later sentenced to a 15-year prison term. Andrade eventually pleaded no contest to second-degree robbery and completed a four-year sentence through a combination of jail and prison time.
Court Rejects Claims of an Ongoing Public-Safety Threat
At issue was whether San Jose police had genuine exigent circumstances to bypass a warrant. Detective Estantino testified that she sought the Verizon records swiftly because of what she described as an ongoing public-safety threat, asserting that the suspects posed a risk of additional robberies, homicide or accidental shooting, the Mercury News reported. San Jose police had claimed those exigent circumstances justified the emergency request…