COA 371913 PEOPLE OF MI V DEREK LAMAR MURRAY Opinion - After Remand - Per Curiam - Unpublished 9/28/2026

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.
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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N
C O U R T O F A P P E A L S
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
UNPUBLISHED
September 28, 2026
10:02 AM
v No. 371913
Wayne Circuit Court
DEREK LAMAR MURRAY, LC No. 23-005300-01-FC
Defendant-Appellant.
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v No. 371914
Wayne Circuit Court
DEREK LAMAR MURRAY, LC No. 23-005308-01-FC
Defendant-Appellant.
AFTER REMAND
Before: CAMERON, P.J., and M. J. KELLY and YOUNG, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
In Docket No. 371913 of these consolidated appeals,1 defendant appeals by right his jury-
trial convictions of assault with intent to commit murder (AWIM), MCL 750.83; assault with a
dangerous weapon (felonious assault), MCL 750.82(1); and two counts of possession of a firearm
during the commission of a felony (felony-firearm), MCL 750.227b(1). In Docket No. 371914,
1 People v Murray, unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered August 14, 2024 (Docket
Nos. 371913 and 371914).

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defendant appeals by right his separate jury-trial convictions for AWIM; first-degree home
invasion, MCL 750.110a(2)(a); three counts of felony-firearm; and intentional discharge of a
firearm at a dwelling, MCL 750.234b(1).
In our prior opinion, People v Murray, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Courts of
Appeals, issued February 18, 2026 (Docket Nos. 371913 and 371914), pp 1, 8, we remanded this
case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the good-faith exception to
the exclusionary rule applied to permit the use of defendant’s tether location data at trial. Having
reviewed the trial court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law, we affirm.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The facts underlying this appeal were summarized in our prior opinion:
These appeals arise out of defendant’s consolidated jury-trial convictions
for separate shootings that took place on September 24, 2023, and October 4, 2023.
In March 2023, the relationship between defendant and his live-in girlfriend of 4
years, April Parker, became violent. According to Parker, she called the police on
defendant so many times that she began to recognize responding officers. In
August 2023, defendant was charged with two misdemeanor domestic violence
charges involving Parker and, as a condition of release, he was placed on a tether
with electronic monitoring. After his release from custody, defendant resided with
his father, whose house was about a five-minute drive from the home defendant
formerly shared with Parker, which he was prohibited from visiting.
In the late hours of September 24, 2023, defendant, who still had keys to
Parker’s home, entered the home without her knowledge and discovered her naked
and asleep in bed with Theophilus Watson, a man from the same neighborhood and
with whom defendant was familiar. Watson was awakened by a sudden blow to
the head, and he saw defendant standing over him holding a handgun. Defendant
then shot Watson once in his arm and again in his knee. Watson ran out of the
house. As Watson was fleeing, defendant shot at him a third time, narrowly missing
his head. Watson lost consciousness after seeking refuge at a neighbor’s house, and
woke up later that morning in the hospital. A few days later, Watson met with
police and identified defendant as his shooter. Data from defendant’s tether also
showed that defendant was not at his father’s home shortly before and after the
shooting, and Parker’s home fell within the tether’s location data available during
the time frame of the shooting.
On October 3, 2023, Parker failed to appear in court to testify in the
domestic violence case. Therefore, the charges against defendant were dismissed.
Defendant did not go to the police station that day to have his tether removed, so it
remained attached to his ankle.
The next day, October 4, 2023, Parker was at her home drinking with her
friend, Brian Hurst. Shortly after 1:00 a.m., Parker and Hurst were sitting on the
couch when the living room window was suddenly shot out. Parker hit the floor,

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and defendant entered the house through the broken window, firing multiple shots.
Parker then felt what she believed was a gun pressed against her head. Defendant
asked her whether the house’s cameras were on, which she denied. Defendant then
left and Parker went to check on Hurst, who was bleeding in her living room. Parker
retrieved a towel for Hurst, but by then defendant had returned and told her to tell
the police that she was robbed. After defendant left, Parker returned to the living
to find that Hurst was gone, having stumbled out the front door and around to the
side of the house. Parker then called the police, and Hurst was admitted to the
hospital to receive treatment for five gunshot wounds. Detroit Police detectives
later contacted the Fugitive Apprehension Service Team, who used defendant’s
tether location to confirm his presence at Parker’s home the night of the shooting.
Detectives requested an arrest warrant for defendant and a search warrant for his
home on Coyle Street based, in part, on that information.
Before trial, defendant moved to suppress his tether location data from the
October 4, 2023 shooting on Fourth Amendment grounds. Defendant’s motion was
denied. He then moved the court for reconsideration, requesting an evidentiary
hearing. This motion was also denied, and the tether data was introduced to the
jury at trial. Defendant was convicted as noted above. [Id. at 2-3.]
On appeal, defendant argued that his tether location data should have been suppressed, and
that he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the good-faith exception
applied. Because the record was insufficient for us to determine whether the good-faith exception
applied, we remanded the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing. Id. at 4, 6-7. At the
hearing, several officers testified regarding the extent of their knowledge about the status and
operation of defendant’s tether, and the trial court ruled that the good-faith exception applied. The
trial court further found that, even if the exception did not apply, any error in admitting the tether
location data was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. We now consider whether the trial court
erred in reaching those conclusions.
II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW
This Court reviews de novo a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress.
The trial court’s factual findings are reviewed for clear error, and the underlying
constitutional issues, including whether a Fourth Amendment violation occurred,
are reviewed de novo. A factual finding is clearly erroneous if it leaves the Court
with a definite and firm conviction that the trial court made a mistake. [People v
Moorman, 331 Mich App 481, 484-485; 952 NW2d 597 (2020) (quotation marks
and citations omitted).]
“A trial court’s decision on a motion for new trial is reviewed for an abuse of discretion,
which occurs when the trial court renders a decision falling outside the range of principled
decisions.” People v Dimambro, 318 Mich App 204, 212; 897 NW2d 233 (2016) (quotation marks
and citation omitted).

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III. ANALYSIS
Neither party provided supplemental briefing to this Court after remand. We therefore
must decide whether the good-faith exception applied based solely on the evidentiary hearing
transcript and the trial court’s resulting order denying defendant’s motion to suppress. On that
record, we conclude that the trial court did not clearly err by finding that the good-faith exception
applied to defendant’s tether location data.
Evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is generally inadmissible at trial.
Moorman, 331 Mich App at 485. This exclusionary rule serves to “protect the Fourth Amendment
rights of citizens to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures[,]” People v Hawkins, 468
Mich 488, 498; 668 NW2d 602 (2003), and to deter police misconduct, People v Goldston, 470
Mich 523, 526; 682 NW2d 479 (2004). There are exceptions to the exclusionary rule, see, e.g.,
People v LoCicero (After Remand), 453 Mich 496, 508-509; 556 NW2d 498 (1996), and the
government bears the burden of showing that an exception applies, People v Cartwright, 454 Mich
550, 561; 563 NW2d 208 (1997).
Under the good-faith exception, evidence obtained through a defective search warrant is
admissible when the executing officer reasonably relied upon the validity of the warrant in
objective good faith. Goldston, 470 Mich at 525-526, 540-541. In People v Lucynski, 514 Mich
888, 890-891; 9 NW3d 327 (2024), our Supreme Court explained:
Suppression turns on the culpability of the police and the potential of exclusion to
deter wrongful police conduct. Therefore, excluding evidence that was obtained as
a result of reasonable reliance on a mistake made by a third-party would not
necessarily deter police misconduct because there is no culpable or wrongful police
conduct to deter. In other words, where the police error was the result of isolated
negligence attenuated from the arrest, the exclusionary rule should not apply.
[Quotation marks and citations omitted.]
During the evidentiary hearing, responding officers Sergeant Joseph Eason and Officer
Cashe Coleman testified about what they learned at the scene of the shooting. Sergeant Eason
asked Parker whether defendant’s tether was still active, and she reported that defendant had been
released from his tether condition the previous day. Parker did not provide any verification of this
statement to either Sergeant Eason or Officer Coleman. The officers did not investigate Parker’s
claim regarding defendant’s tether, include her statement in their police reports, or inform any
other officers of her claim. Rather, both officers described the scene as “chaotic,” and Officer
Coleman stated that her first priority was to stop Hurst’s bleeding by tying a tourniquet around his
leg. Sergeant Eason similarly stated that his priority was to secure the scene and assist Officer
Coleman with providing “life-saving” aid to Hurst. Importantly, neither officer performed a search
of defendant’s tether data.
Detective Eric Carthan, who was in charge of the investigation, testified that he submitted
the warrant request for defendant’s tether location data. Detective Cathan explained that he was
not aware that the case underlying defendant’s tether condition had been dismissed before
submitting the request to the Wayne County Tether Unit. In fact, Detective Cathan testified that

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when he contacted the Wayne County Tether Unit, he was informed that defendant’s tether was
still active.
Sergeant David Loftis, who was part of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office Fugitive
Apprehension Service Team at the time of the shooting, also testified that he searched defendant’s
tether location data when he responded to the scene. Sergeant Loftis used his phone to confirm
that defendant’s tether location data placed him at the scene of the shooting. He explained that he
typically received notice that an individual was no longer subject to a tether after receiving court
paperwork or an e-mail notification. Neither circumstance occurred here. Sergeant Loftis testified
that he only learned defendant had been released from his tether condition after defendant was
arrested when he verified the dismissal using the 36th District Court’s online records.
Relying on this testimony, the trial court did not err by finding that the good-faith exception
applied to defendant’s tether location data. Although Parker told Sergeant Eason and Officer
Coleman that defendant had been released from his tether, neither officer had any verification that
Parker’s statement was true or additional information indicating that the tether was inactive.
Additionally, as the trial court noted, “Officer Coleman and Sergeant Eason were tasked with
stabilizing the victim and providing care as needed.” Nothing from the record suggests that Officer
Coleman’s and Sergeant Eason’s failure to relay the information from Parker to other officers an
attempt to conceal the information; in other words, nothing from the record demonstrates any
wrongful police conduct. Rather, the record supports the trial court’s finding that their failure to
communicate Parker’s statement resulted from their immediate need to secure the scene and
administer aid to Hurst, who was bleeding after being shot five times.
Moreover, there is no evidence that Detective Carthan, who requested the tether location
data, or Sergeant Loftis, who performed the search, knew that defendant’s tether condition had
been dismissed. Detective Cathan was even told that the tether was still active when he submitted
his warrant request to the Wayne County Tether Unit. Sergeant Loftis also confirmed that he did
not learn defendant had been released from his tether condition until after defendant’s arrest.
Because nothing in the record undermines that finding, the trial court did not clearly err by finding
that the good-faith exception applied and denying defendant’s motions to suppress and for a new
trial.2
Affirmed.
/s/ Thomas C. Cameron
/s/ Michael J. Kelly
/s/ Adrienne N. Young
2 Because the good-faith exception applies, we need not address the trial court’s alternative
harmless-error analysis.

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