By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
Convicted killer Logan Clegg says police changed their story about the illegal use of cell phone data after the state Supreme Court ruled the searches unconstitutional.
Clegg is serving 50-years to life in prison for the unexplained 2022 murders of Stephen and Djeswende “Wendy” Reid in Concord.
Clegg is appealing last month’s order from Merrimack Superior Court Judge John Kissinger to again allow the evidence obtained by the use of warrantless cell phone ping data. The use of cell phone ping data is considered a search under the law and requires a warrant.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court ordered Kissinger earlier this year to reconsider his 2023 pre-trial ruling to allow evidence from the unconstitutional ping searches. That evidence included a 9 mm pistol, a fake Romanian identity card, and $7,000 in cash.
In 2023, Kissinger ruled the evidence obtained without any warrants was allowed under exigent circumstances, meaning police believed that had limited time to catch a dangerous killer. The Supreme Court demolished that ruling, finding that it clearly violates the constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.
The Supreme Court then ordered Kissinger to reconsider his work under the legal theory of inevitable discovery. Kissinger ruled on June 12 that police would have found Clegg and the evidence legally, so the illegally obtained evidence could be allowed under inevitable discovery rules.
Defense attorney Thomas Barnard filed Clegg’s notice of appeal to the Supreme Court on July 2, indicating he will challenge Kissinger’s June order on multiple grounds, including the argument prosecutors had already waived their arguments in favor of inevitable discovery before the Supreme Court issued its ruling. The notice of appeal is a barebones document that does not include detailed legal arguments.
Concord Police detectives who worked on the case testified in 2023 they needed to skip the warrants to find Clegg in Burlington, Vermont in October of 2022 because they believed he was due to leave the country in 48 hours. They testified that they understood that Verizon did not expedite police requests for data that includes warrants, so they had to use an emergency Verizon service to get the information in time to arrest Clegg.
Verizon does, in fact, allow police with warrants to use the emergency hotline to get data as soon as possible. According to prior pleadings in the case, Concord Police regularly obtain data from Verizon without warrants.
“Defense counsel [in 2023] again asked [Lt. Marc] McGonagle about the possibility of calling the exigency hotline with a warrant. McGonagle testified, ‘We’ve never – and I’ve never done that.’” Barnard wrote in an April motion.
But Kissinger gave the state another bite at the apple in March, allowing police to testify all over again. This time, they said they had applied for warrants that would have allowed them to eventually find Clegg, but went ahead with the warrantless data believing he was a danger to the community at large.
Clegg has maintained he did not kill the Reids in April of 2022. The retired couple was hiking in Concord near the wooded area where Clegg lived in a tent. There is no apparent motive for the killings, and Clegg has no connection to the couple.
Clegg was not a suspect at the time of the killings, but burned his campsite and fled New Hampshire when police began searching the area in the days after the murders. Clegg was wanted on a burglary warrant in Utah at the time.