DAVID LEON RILEY v. CALIFORNIA
Supreme Court of the United States, Roberts, Filed June 25, 2014,
Search of Cellular Phones- Police must generally secure a warrant before conducting a search of digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested.

In two cases, one related to firearm possession and the other related to drug trafficking, police seized cellular phones from the suspects involved and accessed them shortly thereafter. By accessing these phones, police obtained information that was subsequently used against them at trial. While the second case involved a more limited “flip” phone, the USSC declined to draw a distinction between that and a “smart” phone.

Looking back to Chimel, the USSC noted that with regard to cellular phones there is no risk of harm to officers or destruction of evidence that cannot be defeated by physical manipulation of the phone (inspecting it for weapons, removing the battery, placing it in a faraday bag).

Additionally, while examining the reduced privacy concern of arrested subjects, the USSC gave tacit approval to decisions from lower courts approving searches of address books, etc. Due to the breadth and volume of information contained in a cell phone (as well as the problem of cloud computing), the USSC declined to extend this approval to cellular phones.

In response to the concern for law-enforcement’s ability to operate, the USSC envisions a jurisdiction where “police officers can e-mail warrant requests to judges’ iPads [and] judges have signed such warrants and e-mailed them back to officers in less than 15 minutes.” That jurisdiction isn’t located in Maryland, I’m fairly certain, but it’s a lovely idea… though drafting a warrant isn’t precisely an instantaneous process (of course, in the jurisdiction of the future, you could probably just attach your Google Glass video and your most recent synapse firings).

The USSC very explicitly pointed to what would likely be the largest loophole in this holding: the exigency exception. Towards the end of the opinion, the USSC noted that “exigencies could include the need to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence in individual cases, to pursue a fleeing suspect, and to assist persons who are seriously injured or are threatened with imminent injury.” Cases certain to come before the court in the near future (well before Maryland gets around to iPad search warrants).