State v. Thomas Mosley

Syllabus

The defendant, Thomas Mosley (Mosley or defendant), was convicted of carrying a firearm without a license, discharging a firearm while in the commission of a crime of violence, and three counts of obstruction of justice. The jury deadlocked on the remaining counts, murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The trial justice subsequently granted the defendant's motion for a new trial on the count of discharging a firearm while in the commission of a crime of violence. At the second trial, the defendant was convicted of second-degree murder and discharging a firearm while in the commission of a crime of violence. On appeal, Mosley identified twenty-one appellate issues, including that his retrial on the charge of discharging a firearm while in the commission of a crime of violence violated his protection against double jeopardy the obstruction-of-justice counts should not have been joined, or, alternatively, should have been severed from the other charges the admission of recordings of telephone calls the defendant made while incarcerated at the Adult Correctional Institutions (which served as the basis of two of the obstruction-of-justice charges) violated his Fourth Amendment rights and should not have been admitted into evidence and the Google Wi-Fi data and/or related testimony tracing the defendant to the murder scene was unreliable and novel technology that should have been precluded. The Supreme Court reviewed all of the defendant's contentions and deemed the appeal to be without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of conviction was affirmed.