Ohio Court: police need warrant for cell phone search

Here's an interesting development - according to the Washington Post the Ohio Supreme Court has held that police officers must obtain a warrant before scanning the contents of a suspect's mobile phone.

"The Ohio Supreme Court said Tuesday police officers must obtain a search warrant before scouring the contents of a suspect's cell phone, unless their safety is in danger.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio described the ruling as a landmark case."

Landmark case definitely. I don't know of any others that have come to a similar conclusion and it was a close call with a 4 to 3 majority ruling according to the Ohio court's own website.

"(Dec. 15, 2009) The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today that the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures requires police to obtain a warrant before searching data stored in a cell phone that has been seized from its owner in the course of a lawful arrest when the search is not necessary to protect the safety of law enforcement officers and there are no exigent circumstances.
The Court’s 4-3 majority decision, which reversed a ruling of the 2^nd District Court of Appeals, was authored by Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger.
Antwaun Smith was arrested on drug-related charges after responding to a call to his cell phone that had been placed by a crack cocaine user acting as a police informant. During the arrest, police searched Smith and found a cell phone on his person.  The arresting officer put the cell phone in his pocket and placed Smith in a cruiser, then searched the scene for evidence. Later, police recovered bags containing crack cocaine at the scene. Officers subsequently searched the contents of Smith’s phone without a search warrant or his consent. They discovered call records and stored numbers that confirmed prior calls between Smith’s phone and the informant’s phone number...

...United States v. Finley... held that a cell phone is similar to a closed container found on an arrestee’s person and therefore subject to search by an arresting officer without a warrant...

...United States v. Park, which held that a cell phone is not a “container” as that term is used in prior Fourth Amendment cases, and that a warrantless police search of data stored in a defendant’s cell phone was unconstitutional...

In today’s decision, Justice Lanzinger wrote: “Smith bases his challenge on the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. It is well established that searches conducted without a warrant are per se unreasonable, subject to certain ‘jealously and carefully drawn’ exceptions.’  Jones v. United States (1958).  ... The exception that the state relies on is the search incident to arrest, which allows officers to conduct a search that includes an arrestee’s person and the area within the arrestee’s immediate control. ... This exception ‘derives from interests in officer safety and evidence preservation that are typically implicated in arrest situations.’ Arizona v. Gant (2009). ... But when the interests in officer safety and evidence preservation are minimized, the court has held that this exception no longer applies.”....

In this case, Justice Lanzinger wrote, “The state argues that we should follow Finley and affirm the court of appeals because the trial court was correct in its conclusion that a cell phone is akin to a closed container and is thus subject to search upon a lawful arrest. We do not agree with this comparison, which ignores the unique nature of cell phones. Objects falling under the banner of ‘closed container’ have traditionally been physical objects capable of holding other physical objects.  Indeed, the United States Supreme Court has stated that in this situation, ‘container’ means ‘any object capable of holding another object.’ New York v. Belton (1981).”   ...

“Although cell phones cannot be equated with laptop computers, their ability to store large amounts of private data gives their users a reasonable and justifiable expectation of a higher level of privacy in the information they contain,” wrote Justice Lanzinger.  “Once the cell phone is in police custody, the state has satisfied its immediate interest in collecting and preserving evidence and can take preventive steps to ensure that the data found on the phone is neither lost nor erased. But because a person has a high expectation of privacy in a cell phone’s contents, police must then obtain a warrant before intruding into the phone’s contents.”
“ ... We hold that the warrantless search of data within a cell phone seized incident to a lawful arrest is prohibited by the Fourth Amendment when the search is unnecessary for the safety of law-enforcement officers and there are no exigent circumstances. Because the state failed to show that either of these exceptions to the warrant requirement applied, the search of Smith’s cell phone was improper and the trial court was required to exclude from evidence the call records and phone numbers taken from the cell phone. We accordingly reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
Justice Lanzinger’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justices Paul E. Pfeifer and Maureen O’Connor."

The dissenting opinions whilst accepting the notion of lots of private data on mobile phones nevertheless felt that the specific search at issue here "resembles police officers’ search of a traditional address book found on the person of an arrestee during a search incident to arrest", something which is allowable under the 4th amendment. Justice Cupp, dissenting said:

“The majority bases its broad holdings on its estimation of the possible capabilities of other cell phones and computers. But here only the address book and call records were admitted into evidence.  The issue of a more in-depth warrantless search of ‘data within a cell phone’ is not before us.  I would leave for another day, to a case that factually raises the issue directly, the question of whether police may perform more in-depth searches of information on cell phones that have capabilities akin to a computer.”

It is good to see a supreme court beginning to tackle such cases and getting a handle on a half decent analysis of new technologies. The full decision is available here.