NH Supreme Court says warrantless search in double murder was unconstitutional

New Hampshire’s highest court says police acted unconstitutionally in the way they tracked down a man later convicted of a double murder in Concord.

Logan Clegg was sentenced to at least 100 years in prison for the murders of Stephen and Djeswende Reid.

The couple were shot to death on a hiking trail in April of 2022. In October of that year, Concord police found Clegg’s phone number after police in Utah told the department that he had booked a flight to Germany from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Logan Clegg was found guilty of “knowingly and recklessly” causing the deaths of Stephen and Djeswende “Wendy” Reid, among other charges

Without obtaining a warrant, the Concord Police Department used Verizon’s emergency circumstances protocol to ping Clegg’s phone in Burlington, Vermont, where he was taken into custody.

In defending the search, prosecutors argued that there was evidence Clegg planned to leave the country, that he would likely discard the murder weapon before fleeing and that the random nature of the killing meant the suspect evading capture posed a danger to others.

Appealing his conviction, Clegg’s defense argued that the trial court was wrong to find the warrantless search to be acceptable. The New Hampshire Supreme Court agreed with that claim in a ruling on Tuesday.

The court noted that “exigent circumstances” must exist for there to be an exception to the constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure.

The lower court had said the Concord Police Department was “under the impression that a request to Verizon made with a warrant could take days or weeks to process before cell phone location data would be produced.”

The state Supreme Court said that while submitting requests through Verizon’s ordinary search warrant process instead of through its exigency hotline could take longer, “a reasonable officer would have inferred that nothing prevented CPD from requesting data via the exigency hotline while in possession of a warrant.”

“The State has not demonstrated a reasonable basis for believing in the existence of a Verizon policy that would prioritize warrantless requests over those accompanied by a warrant,” the ruling continued. “Furthermore, the CPD lieutenant who made the decision to forgo a warrant conceded that Verizon’s guidelines for law enforcement do not expressly prohibit police from using the exigency hotline if they have a warrant.”

The court also noted that an exception would be based on “the delay caused by obtaining a search
warrant,” not in how long it’s expected for Verizon to respond to it.

“It is unreasonable that any individual’s freedom from governmental intrusion might be curtailed by virtue of how long it may or may not take a third party to respond to a warrant,” the court wrote.

Justices took further issue with the lower court’s acceptance of prosecutors’ argument, pointing out that five months had passed since the killings, with no evidence of Clegg committing other crimes in that time. There was no reason to believe Clegg knew police had his phone number or, if he still had the murder weapon, that he would discard or destroy it before a warrant could be granted, the court said.

The ruling also noted that Clegg’s scheduled flight was not for 56 hours, and that police could have attempted to capture him there.

“From the perspective of a reasonable officer in CPD’s position, there were two likely scenarios: either the defendant would attempt to board the international flight in 56 hours; or he would not appear at the airport, instead remaining at his current unknown location or traveling to another unknown location,” the New Hampshire Supreme Court wrote. “There was not, however, an objective basis to believe that under either scenario a delay of a few hours would risk the defendant’s evading apprehension.”

The ruling does not set Clegg free or even guarantee he receives a new trial. Instead, it directs a lower court to review if the evidence could have been obtained another way. The state Supreme Court can then rule if a new trial is needed.

“On or before June 15, 2026, the trial court shall hold any further proceedings it deems necessary to resolve this issue and report its findings and rulings to this court,” the Supreme Court wrote. “All further processing of this appeal is stayed until the trial court completes its review in accordance with this opinion. Any issues the defendant raised in the notice of appeal but did not brief are deemed waived.”

“We are reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision and will take appropriate action,” the office of New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said in a statement.