Moot Court Exercise: The Celtic Old Steel Knife Murder – Judith v. United States

Background and Facts

On January 17, 2019 Deborah Judith was arrested at the home of James Johnson for his murder. Neighbors heard heated arguments, then called the police, who discovered Mr. Johnson lying dead on his kitchen floor with several knife wounds. Judith and Johnson had lived together for 6 months. The house is owned by Mr. Johnson.

Upon entering the house, the police heard a synthesized voice announcement from Johnson’s Amazon Echo home assistant: “May I help you, James? May I help you, James?” As part of their standard operating procedure, before entering the house, they had used a new electronic surveillance device, the Re-Echo 7000, which enables the collection of certain useful information from the Amazon Echo. The Re-Echo enables unauthorized access to most data on the Echo, including in its cache, by taking advantage of vulnerabilities in the account authentication interface of the Echo. Data recovered through the Echo included Ms. Judith’s voiceprint and her name. By using a quick license plate lookup with Ms. Judith’s name, the police found her license plate and then very quickly located her car speeding away from the crime scene. She was apprehended 5 miles from Johnson’s house and arrested for 2nd degree murder.

Ms Judith was tried in Federal District Court in Springfield, MA. In preparation for the trial, prosecutors obtained a court order under 18 USC §2703(d) requiring Amazon to disclose various room state information, which originated from the Amazon Echo device in Johnson’s kitchen. This information was used to establish that there was a physical struggle in the room, that she was in an extreme agitated state, that Judith was present in the kitchen at the time of the murder and that she had recently purchased a knife of the same type as was likely used to murder Mr. Johnson. A trial, much was made of the fact that Ms. Judith’s emotional state was recorded as being elevated and that Ms. Judith was in close proximity to Mr. Johnson during the time the struggle was noted. Ms. Judith was convicted of second degree murder.

Proceedings Below

At trial, Ms. Judith moved to suppress the room state information, the Amazon ordering data, and the voice print data used to identify her at the outset of the investigation. The District Court denied all three of her suppression motions. Defendant appealed her conviction in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on the grounds that the evidence collected from the Amazon Echo violated her Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. The First Circuit upheld Judith’s conviction without a written opinion. Judith filed a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, which granted the request.

Data Used to Track and Convict Deborah Judith, Now Subject to Suppression Motion

The Amazon Echo is a small device that sits nearly unnoticed anywhere in a room, designed to respond to voice commands issued by individuals who are in the same room. 100 Million Echo devices were sold in 2018. In a common interaction with the Echo, someone in the room would ask whether a particular kind of good or service is available, then be presented with various options. Using a patented audio browsing technique, the user can learn more about each option, select the desired item, and complete the order, all based on audio interactions. Recently, Amazon has also added an emotion detecting systems based on EQ Radio work pioneered by MIT Prof, Dina Katabi. Using this RF technique, the Echo maintains a measure of the emotion state of the occupants of the room. 

Orders placed through the Amazon Echo would include:

  • Item name and description – in this case a Celtic Old Steel hunting knife
  • Payment and shipping information
  • Physical location from which the order was placed (based on in-unit GPS)
  • Note that because the seller of the Celtic Old Steel blade is located in Dublin, Ireland, some or all of this data may be stored in the Amazon data center in Ireland.

During normal operation, the Amazon Echo also maintains room state information for the purpose of customizing recommendations and internal company measurement of customer buying patterns. Customers do not have access to this information. The room state information includes:

  • Number of individuals in the room based on identification of distinct voices – including here both Judith and Johnson
  • Presence of known users based on their voicepoint information
  • Relative location of each user who is either breathing or speaking in the room, accurate to a +/- 15cm from the Echo with an angular error of +/- 𝝅/4
  • Emotional state of each person in the room
  • Air temperature
  • Air quality and presence of smoke or other dangerous conditions

The prosecutors investigating Deborah Judith obtained all of the above information through a court order under 18 USC 2703(d), based on a finding by the magistrate that there was a reasonable articulable suspicion that the information sought was related to a crime.

Relevant Data Agreements

The Amazon Echo found in Mr. Johnson’s kitchen was signed in to Ms. Judith’s Amazon account at the time the knife was purchased. Relevant parts of the Amazon terms of service (total 3905 words) and privacy policy (total 2650 words) provide:

  • As a condition of using the Amazon Echo you agreed that we will collect sounds from the room in which the device is placed. We will only use this information to interpret voice commands, identify individuals in the room, and assess other environmental conditions in the area.
  • Amazon will only disclose information we collect through the Echo for the purpose of fulfilling transactions initiated by the user and to optimize our services. 
  • We will not to disclose any personal information to third parties except by required to do so by law.

Proceedings Before the United States Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in order to resolve two related issues:

  1. Whether disclosure by Amazon to the government of data regarding contents of online orders and room state information under 18 USC §2703(d) is an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment?
  2. Whether police access without a warrant to room state information by means of surreptitious access to a wireless device in the home is an unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment?

In addressing this question, the parties will consider, among other cases Smith v. Maryland, US v. Jones, Riley v. California, Mainstream Marketing Services v. Federal Trade Commission (10th Cir, 2004), of course Carpenter v United States, and the Microsoft Ireland case. 

**In addition to those cases, be sure to read one new Fourth Amendment case, Kyllo v United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001).**

The Court has ordered that proceedings will be conducted as follows:

  • The Court will hear oral arguments on October 17, 2019, following submission of briefs from the Solicitor General/Appellee and Defendant/Appellant. 
  • Each party will have 15 minutes to argue its case. 
  • Given the significance of the issues, the Court is taking the unusual step of hearing argument from amici curiae (friends of the court), including a coalition of civil liberties organizations and public and private law enforcement organizations. Each amicus group will have 15 minutes before the court.
  • During the course of the arguments, each Justice will be expected to ask at least two questions.
  • Following the oral arguments, the Justices will retire and formulate their decision, to be announced in open court along with a summary of the legal reasoning supporting the decision.
  • Immediately after the decision is announced, the parties will hold a short press conference.

Assignment 9b: Papers to be Filed in Advance

By order of the Court, the parties will file the following papers on Stellar by Wednesday, October 16 at 6:00 pm:

  • Parties to the case (Appellant/Defendant Judith and Appellee/Prosecution US): A brief in support of your position (roughly 2-3 single spaced pages). Note these are not neutral case briefs; they are advocacy briefs. For an outstanding example of a Supreme Court brief, see the Appellees brief in ACLU v. Reno. Be sure to include:
    • The legal issue to be resolved
    • Statements of the relevant facts
    • Strong arguments in support of your position, citing relevant cases and using facts as needed. 
  • Amici curiae: A 2-3 page advocacy brief in support of your position. Include the items listed for the appellee/ant brief along with a short statement of why your organization is interested in the outcome.
  • Supreme Court Justices: write a 2-3 page memo summarizing the issues (from your perspective) in the case and include two questions for each side.

For all parties, 

  1. Note that the Court has indicated the issue it wants to hear about on appeal. You should take that seriously and be sure to address it completely. However, you can argue that the Court should look at the case with more nuance. For example, you might suggest one answer to a certain class of records but a different one for other kinds of records.
  2. Remember to cite and quote cases! Your argument has no persuasive power whatsoever if you do not base it on Supreme Court precedent. (You can cite concurrences and even dissents as well, but they are not binding.)

Other important preparation

  • Parties and Justices are expected to be familiar with the opinions assigned in previous classes, as well as the major cases discussed in those opinions.
  • Familiarize yourself with the style of  oral arguments practiced at the United States Supreme Court by listening to some of the historic arguments collected at Oyez.org including Smith v. Maryland and US v. Jones. Note how the Justices frequently interrupt the attorneys!
  • Learn about the Justice or the organization whose role you are taking and see how well you can be in character.