Do law enforcement officers need to have a search warrant to search your cell phone during an arrest

As I was doing a research paper on searches and seizures I came across a recent California Supreme Court case involving whether or not police can search cell phones during any arrests.

First lets start with a definition of 4^th Amendment to the United States Constitution:

It states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, house, 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 describes the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Recently the California Supreme Court made a ruling in which they stated that a search of a defendant’s cell phone during an arrest without a search warrant was legal and constitutional.  The ruling apparently applies to the entire contents of your cell phone, including emails, passwords, voicemails and etc.

The California Supreme Court specifically ruled:

“We hold that the cell phone was “immediately associated with defendant’s persons” and that the warrantless search of the cell phone therefore was valid”.

In this case the defendant was arrested for selling Ecstasy to an undercover officer, they seized his cell phone. During interrogation, an officer searched the phone and found a text message that stated: “6 4 80” which the officer interpreted as an offer to sell 6 pills of Ecstasy for $80.

The trial text was used against the defendant in his criminal trial.  His defense attorneys attempted to have the text message evidence suppressed on the grounds that the search of the cell phone was an illegal search because there was no search warrant for the phone.

Justice Kathryn Mickle Werderer noted that the decision to permit police “to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer merely because they device was taken from an arrestee’s person.”

Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger wrote for the majority” Objects failing under the banner of ‘closed container’ have traditionally been physical objects capable of holding other physical objects… Even the more basic models of modern cell phones are capable of storing a wealth of digitized information wholly unlike any physical objects found within a closed container.”

The only way that this issue will be solved is for the United States Supreme Court to hear this issue and make a final decision.

I look forward to hearing your comments or questions on this matter.

Frank Osekowsky

August 13^th, 2011