A Weld District judge will issue a written order regarding the validity of a warrant to search the phone of a teenager accused of fatally shooting his 15-year-old ex-girlfriend in June 2023.
After pleading not guilty earlier this year, 18-year-old Jovanni Sirio-Cardona appeared in front of Judge Vincente Vigil for motions hearings Tuesday and Wednesday. Vigil addressed several motions filed, the most prominent being a motion that would deem a search warrant of Sirio-Cardona’s cellphone invalid.
Sirio-Cardona was arrested in June 2023 after police said he shot and killed his 15-year-old ex-girlfriend, Lily Silva-Lopez. Though he was 16 at the time, he is being prosecuted as an adult and faces charges of first-degree murder after deliberation, second-degree murder, first-degree burglary, aggravated robbery and possession of a handgun by a juvenile, according to Colorado court records.
About 3:45 p.m. June 16, 2023, Greeley police responded to a shooting at a trailer home in the 400 block of 35th Avenue. Police found Silva-Lopez in the bedroom with multiple gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Detectives determined Sirio-Cardona approached the home unannounced, forced entry through Lily’s bedroom window and shot her several times in a hallway just outside the room. Police say he moved her body into the bedroom, then fled before officers arrived.
Further investigation revealed that Lily yelled for her younger brother to run as she noticed Sirio-Cardona breaking into the home. Her younger brother went to his bedroom to call 911, police say, but the call failed to connect.
Police later arrested Sirio-Cardona at his home. When they arrived, he told his grandmother he “did what he had to do and shot someone,” according to arrest records.
Lily’s family said she had dated Sirio-Cardona for about six months and that she tried to end their relationship about a month before the shooting. His mother also reported that he had committed multiple acts of domestic violence against Lily. A week before the shooting, on June 10, police responded to the Silva-Lopez home on a report of Sirio-Cardona punching Lily in the face and hurting her arm.
After being charged as an adult, the defense unsuccessfully tried to get his case moved to juvenile court in August.
On Jan. 8, Sirio-Cardona pleaded not guilty to all charges. He has a seven-day jury trial slated to begin June 16 — two years to the date after his arrest.
Both Tuesday and Wednesday’s motions hearings aimed to hammer out a handful of motions ahead of that trial. While Vigil made rulings on several — such as finding officers had “ample probable cause” to arrest Sirio-Cardona without a warrant and finding no child hearsay had been admitted as evidence — most of both hearings focused on the search warrant of the phone.
Sirio-Cardona’s defense argued that the parameters of the search warrant issued for his phone were too broad. The warrant requested “all incoming and outgoing data” as well as “data maintained within the phone’s memory,” within a seven-day stretch leading up to the shooting.
The Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, requires search warrants not be “too broad” to protect people’s right to privacy. But, as evidenced in Sirio-Cardona’s hearings, there is some argument about what constitutes “too broad.”
Citing a handful of different cases, Assistant District Attorney Robb Miller argued that “all incoming and outgoing” data does not simply mean all data. He also argued that the officers who carried out the search warrant acted in good faith, referencing the District Attorney’s Chief Investigator Michael Prill, who at the reverse-transfer hearing last year testified that he reviewed about 81,000 files but was only looking for things related to the crime.
Miller compared the search of the phone to police searching a suspect’s home for evidence contained in a notebook. Though police are only interested in the notebook containing evidence, they have to peruse through all notebooks to find the pertinent pages.
Vigil ultimately decided he needed a bit more time and information before issuing a decision, setting a deadline toward the end of the month for either side to file any supplementary information.
Sirio-Cardona will next appear in Weld District Court on June 3 for a pretrial readiness hearing ahead of the June 16 trial date.
Laura Tellers, a former private investigator who’s accused of helping smuggle drugs into the Weld County Jail, is also set to stand trial in front of Vigil beginning June 16. Vigil said Wednesday that if both cases continue to trial as scheduled, he plans to prioritize Sirio-Cardona’s.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Judge to issue order regarding cellphone search in case of Greleey teen accused of killing 15-year-old girl )
Also on site :