STATE v. PIERRE (2020)

AFFIRMED.

The State appeals an order granting the defendant's motion to suppress data obtained from an Event Data Recorder (EDR) located inside the defendant's vehicle. In granting the suppression motion, the trial court relied on State v. Worsham, 227 So. 3d 602, 603 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017) (holding that “there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information retained by an event data recorder”).

On appeal, the State asks us to reject Worsham and reverse the suppression order. However, based on the insufficiency of the record—including a suppression hearing without any witnesses or factual stipulations—we have no occasion to analyze the reasoning in Worsham which, among other things, likened EDRs to cell phones. Id. at 604−06.¹ Accordingly, I agree that the trial court's order should be affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Further, the parties have not advanced any argument as to whether the physical entry into the defendant's vehicle to download data from the EDR constituted a search under the trespass theory. See Mobley v. State, 307 Ga. 59, 834 S.E.2d 785, 792 (2019) (“The retrieval of data without a warrant at the scene of the collision was a search and seizure that implicates the Fourth Amendment, regardless of any reasonable expectations of privacy.”).

PER CURIAM.

EVANDER, C.J., and LAMBERT, J., concur. GROSSHANS, J., concurs specially, with opinion.