In our textbook review the following Critical Legal Thinking Case and

answer the questions that follow.

Case $8\mathrm{.}4$ U$.$S$.$ SUPREME COURT CASE Search of Cell Phones

Riley v$.$ California

$134$ S$.$Ct$.2473,2014$ U$.$S$.$ Lexis $4497(2014)$

Supreme Court of the United States

"Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a

cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple $-$ get a

warrant."

$-$Roberts, Chief Justice

Facts

David Riley was stopped for driving with expired registration tags. A

search of the car turned up two concealed and loaded firearms. The

police confiscated Riley's smartphone and went through it and found

gang$-$related information and a photograph of Riley in front of a car they

suspected to be involved in a shooting a few weeks earlier. Based on the

information retrieved from the cell phone, Riley was charged with that

earlier shooting, with firing at an occupied vehicle, assault with a

semiautomatic weapon, and attempted murder. Riley was convicted of all

charges and was sentenced to $15$ years in prison. Prior to trial, Riley

moved to suppress the evidence the police obtained from his cell phone,

alleging that the information obtained from his phone was the fruit of an

unconstitutional search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The court

denied Riley's request. After appeal, the U$.$S$.$ Supreme Court granted

certiorari to hear the case.

Issue

Can the police, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell

phone from an individual who has been arrested?

Language of the U$.$S$.$ Supreme Court

Courts have approved searches of a variety of personal items carried by

an arrestee $($e$.$g$.,$ billfolds, address books, wallets, and purses$).$ Cell

phones differ in both a quantitative and qualitative sense from other

objects that might be kept on an arrestee's person. Modern 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."

Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell

phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple get a warrant.

Decision

The U$.$S$.$ Supreme Court held that police cannot, without a warrant,

coarch dinital infnrmation on a cell nhone of an individual wha hac hean