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-635381018571400-3175019654100993775889635MINNESOTA JUDICIAL TRAINING UPDATE00MINNESOTA JUDICIAL TRAINING UPDATE6333490191770 -57785812818 SEARCH OF CELL PHONESLANDMARK SUPREME COURT DECISION00 SEARCH OF CELL PHONESLANDMARK SUPREME COURT DECISION -2462351738158QUESTION After arresting a suspect, can law enforcement search the suspect’s cell phone incident to arrest without first obtaining a search warrant?ANSWER NO! On June 25, 2014, in a landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court in Riley v. California, 573 U.S. ___ (2014), unanimously held that the search incident to arrest exception does not extend to a cell phone and that the warrantless search of digital contents of a cell phone during an arrest is unconstitutional.CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURTModern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans “the privacies of life.” The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.WHAT MUST LAW ENFORCEMENT DO WHEN THEY WANT TO SEARCH A CELL PHONE IN CONNECTION WITH AN ARREST? ACCORDING TO CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS GET A WARRANT00QUESTION After arresting a suspect, can law enforcement search the suspect’s cell phone incident to arrest without first obtaining a search warrant?ANSWER NO! On June 25, 2014, in a landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court in Riley v. California, 573 U.S. ___ (2014), unanimously held that the search incident to arrest exception does not extend to a cell phone and that the warrantless search of digital contents of a cell phone during an arrest is unconstitutional.CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURTModern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans “the privacies of life.” The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.WHAT MUST LAW ENFORCEMENT DO WHEN THEY WANT TO SEARCH A CELL PHONE IN CONNECTION WITH AN ARREST? ACCORDING TO CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS GET A WARRANT 20955021971000 889686963827SHORT SUMMARY OF CASE HISTORY AND THE FACTS00SHORT SUMMARY OF CASE HISTORY AND THE FACTSOn June 25, 2014, the United States Supreme Court, in one opinion, considered two cases, both of which involved warrantless police searches of cell phones seized incident to lawful arrests. In the first case, Riley v. California, 573 U.S. ___ (2014), California police lawfully arrested David Riley for possession of concealed and loaded firearms discovered when the police lawfully performed an inventory search of his car after pulling him over and discovering that he was driving on a suspended license. An officer also searched a smart phone seized incident to Riley's arrest and discovered text messages and videos suggesting that Riley had been involved in a shooting a few weeks earlier. Riley was ultimately charged with firing at an unoccupied vehicle, assault with a semiautomatic weapon, and attempted murder. In the second case, United States v. Wurie, 573 U.S. ___ (2014), officers placed Brima Wurie under arrest for a drug sale from a car. In a search incident to the arrest officers seized his flip phone. The flip phone was repeatedly receiving calls from a number identified on the phone as "my house." Officers opened the phone and traced the number back to Wurie’s apartment. After securing a warrant to search the premises, officers discovered 215 grams of crack cocaine, a firearm, cash, and other drug paraphernalia. Wurie was charged with distributing crack cocaine and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Both Riley and Wuria moved to suppress the cell phone evidence on the grounds that it was the fruit of an unconstitutional search. Both trial courts denied the motions. In Riley's case, the California Court of Appeal affirmed. In Wurie's case, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed the district court and vacated Wurie's conviction. 39026197765415THE SUPREME COURT GRANTED CERTIORARI IN BOTH CASES00THE SUPREME COURT GRANTED CERTIORARI IN BOTH CASES19050012499600 1272540979729SHORT SUMMARY OF RILEY v. CALIFORNIA TEN KEY QUOTES AND OBSERVATIONS00SHORT SUMMARY OF RILEY v. CALIFORNIA TEN KEY QUOTES AND OBSERVATIONSTHE FOURTH AMENDMENT: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”As the above text makes clear, “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness.’” Our cases have determined that “[w]here a search is undertaken by law enforcement officials to discover evidence of criminal wrongdoing, reasonableness generally requires the obtaining of a judicial warrant.”In the absence of a warrant, a search is reasonable only if it falls within a specific exception to the warrant requirement. Search incident to arrest is a recognized exception. SEARCH INCIDENT TO ARREST: Under the search incident to arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement, whenever the police arrest someone, they may search, without a warrant, the body of the person and any item in the arrestee’s possession at the time of arrest, and the area into which he might reach. The Search Incident to Arrest (SITA) Doctrine is based on concerns for officer safety and the preservation of evidence.NO THREAT TO LAW ENFORCEMENT – RISK OF “REMOTE WIPING” REMOTE: Digital data stored on a cell phone cannot itself be used as a weapon to harm an arresting officer or to effectuate the arrestee's escape. Law enforcement officers remain free to examine the physical aspects of a phone to ensure that it will not be used as a weapon--say, to determine whether there is a razor blade hidden between the phone and its case. Once an officer has secured a phone and eliminated any potential physical threats, data on the phone can endanger no one. Moreover, according to Chief Justice Roberts, the possibility that evidence could be destroyed or hidden by “remote wiping” or encryption programs, was remote, speculative and capable of being addressed. The police may turn off a phone, remove its battery or place it in a bag made of aluminum foil.QUANTITATIVE DIFFERENCES: The Court identified several quantitative differences that underscore the decision to afford cell phones and other “digital containers” greater Fourth Amendment protection than their physical analogs. ?First, the “immense storage capacity” of cell phones allows “millions of pages of text, thousands of pictures, or hundreds of videos” to be stored and transported. Second, cell phones facilitate the collection and aggregation “in one place of many distinct types of information,” as well as data dating back “to the purchase of the phone, or even earlier.” Chief Justice Roberts explained, “there is an element of pervasiveness that characterizes cell phones but not physical records.”QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCES: Although?the data stored on a cell phone is distinguished from physical records?by quantity alone, certain types of data are also qualitatively?different. This data includes “private information never found in a home in any form.” An Internet search?and browsing history, for example, can be?found on an Internet-enabled phone and could reveal an individual’s?private interests or concerns—perhaps a search?for certain?symptoms of disease, coupled with frequent visits to WebMD.?Data on a cell phone can also reveal where a person has been. Historic?location information is a standard?feature on many smart phones and can?reconstruct someone’s specific movements down to the minute, not only?around town but also within a particular building. The Court also notes that cellphones are not only a repository of sensitive personal data, they are also a portal to private records stored on remote servers. And this problem is compounded by the fact that “[c]ell phone users often may not know whether particular information is stored on the device or in the cloud, and it generally makes little difference.” THIRD-PARTY RULE (NON-CONTENT METADATA RECORDS): The Court also explicitly rejected the government’s argument that “non-content” records like call logs, location data, and other metadata contained in cell phones and held by third-parties can be collected by the government without a warrant. Metadata (metacontent) is defined as the data providing information about one or more aspects of the data. Like other private data stored on cell phones, metadata can reveal “an individual’s private interests and concerns …. can also reveal where a person has been” and there is an “element of pervasiveness” in the collection of all metadata records about an individual. In addition, call logs typically contain more than?just?phone numbers; they include any identifying information that an?individual might add, such as the label ‘my house’ to identify a particular phone number listed in your cell phone, as was the case with the defendant in United States v. Wurie, supra. FOCUS AWAY FROM THE HOME AS CENTER OF THE 4TH AMENDMENT UNIVERSE: The Riley decision also points to a reconceptualization of searches in the digital age that may move the home from the center of the Fourth Amendment universe. As the Court explained, “Indeed, a cell phone search would typically expose to the government far more than the most exhaustive search of a house: A phone not only contains in digital form many sensitive records previously found in the home; it also contains a broad array of private information never found in a home in any form unless the phone is.” The violation of privacy is both the trespass on private property and the invasion of a reasonable expectation of privacy. ?And once the records of the home are digitized, uploaded, and stored on a small device that everyone carries, it is the person’s data and not the person’s domicile that may be paramount.BROADER IMPLICATIONS – TABLETS AND LAPTOPS: While the Riley decision will offer protection to the 12 million people arrested every year, many for minor crimes, its impact will most likely be much broader. The ruling almost certainly will apply to searches of tablet and laptop computers, and its reasoning may apply to searches of homes and businesses and of information held by third parties like phone companies.IMPACT ON LAW ENFORCEMENT – FIFTEEN MINUTE SEARCH WARRANTS: It is true that this decision will have some impact on the ability of law enforcement to combat crime. But the Court’s holding is not that information on a cell phone is immune from search; it is that a warrant is generally required before a search. Recent technological advances have made the process of obtaining a warrant itself more efficient. For example, in many jurisdictions officers can email warrant requests to judges’ iPads and judges have signed such warrants and emailed them back to officers in less than 15 minutes. EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES: In light of the availability of the exigent circumstances exception, there is no reason to believe that law enforcement officers will not be able to address some of the more extreme “now or never” hypotheticals that have been suggested such as;If circumstances suggest a defendant’s phone is the target of an imminent remote-wipe attempt; orA suspect texting an accomplice who, it is feared, is preparing to detonate a bomb; or A child abductor who may have information about the child’s location on his cell phone; orIf officers happen to seize a phone in an unlocked state, they may be able to disable a phone’s automatic-lock feature in order to prevent the phone from locking and encrypting data. The critical point is that, unlike the search incident to arrest exception, the exigent circumstances exception requires a court to examine whether an emergency justified a warrantless search in each particular case. UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT – UNANIMOUS DECISION 3345179603250046253407048500199136070485006197607048500 Hon. Alan F. Pendleton, Anoka County Courthouse, Anoka, Mn 55303; 763-422-7309; alan.pendleton@courts.state.mn.us ................
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