KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Lawyers for two teens charged with murdering an Austin-East High School student as he left for the day in 2021 are trying to suppress cellphone data taken from the defendants' phones.
Ashlee Mathis and Hoai Robinette argue Knox County Criminal Court Judge Steve Sword had already tossed one search warrant issued two years ago as police bore down on suspects Deondre Davis, then 16, and Rashan Jordan, then 14, in the killing of Stanley Freeman Jr.
Police took what they learned from that illegal warrant and further developed their case against the juvenile pair, the lawyers argue.
The second, or new, warrant that police secured early this year is poisoned and invalid as a result, they argue.
Davis, Jordan and the attorneys appeared Monday in court before Sword ahead of their March 27 trial.
Sword, who signed off on the second search warrant executed by police in January on the phones, said he'd take a look at the defense's motion to suppress and then rule.
He mused aloud about the evolving legal theory behind using a search warrant to inspect a cellphone. Must law enforcement only look for and take specific subsets of data within a phone, such as geo-tracking information, he said, or can they go further once they see obvious evidence of a crime, the standard used by police when exploring a physical house or location?
Knoxville police investigators got geo-location data, texts and other evidence against the pair while searching the phones, seized in February 2021 at an East Knox County home where Davis lived and Jordan hung out. Authorities also found guns the pair are believed to have used in an early 2021 crime spree.
Knoxville police have previously testified they found videos and texts of the teens as they engaged in a weekslong spree that included the killing of Freeman on Feb. 12, 2021, the January 2021 attempted killing and shootout of a pair of teens as they left Austin-East and the Feb. 14, 2021, armed robbery and shooting of a marijuana dealer.
Jordan, now 16, and Davis, who turns 19 in April, are being tried together as adults. They're in custody.
Sword said he'd hold another motions hearing March 10.
The trial is expected to take at least a week.
