David Riley was stopped for a traffic violation, arrested on weapons-related charges, and his smartphone was seized incident to arrest. Police searched digital contents on the phone without a warrant and found evidence linking Riley to gang activity and a prior shooting, which was introduced at trial. The case was decided together with United States v. Wurie, in which police searched a flip phone seized from an arrestee and used its call log to locate evidence. In both cases, the government argued that the searches were valid under the search-incident-to-arrest doctrine.
Does the Fourth Amendment permit police, without a warrant, to search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested?
Officers may generally seize and secure a cell phone from an arrestee to prevent destruction of evidence and ensure officer safety, but they may not, without a warrant, search the phone's digital contents incident to arrest absent another applicable exception. The traditional search-incident-to-arrest rationales of officer safety and preservation of evidence do not categorically justify digital-data searches.
No. The warrantless search of digital information on a cell phone seized incident to arrest generally violates the Fourth Amendment. Police must usually obtain a warrant before searching a cell phone's digital contents.
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a unanimous Court, held that cell phones differ in both quantitative and qualitative ways from other physical items carried on the person: they contain immense storage and reveal a detailed record of private life. Because digital data itself cannot be used as a weapon, the officer-safety rationale is weak, and concerns about remote wiping or encryption can usually be addressed by seizing the phone, turning it off, removing the battery, or using Faraday techniques while obtaining a warrant. Balancing the strong privacy interests against the limited governmental interests, the Court declined to extend United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973), to routine digital-content searches. The Court left room for case-specific exigent circumstances, but rejected a categorical rule allowing warrantless cell phone searches after arrest.
Riley is a foundational digital-privacy decision that sharply limited the search-incident-to-arrest doctrine in the context of modern cell phones and emphasized that old Fourth Amendment rules cannot be mechanically applied to new technology. It is commonly paired with United States v. Wurie, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), the companion case decided the same day. Riley builds on the Court's sensitivity to digital privacy seen in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), and foreshadowed Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), which likewise recognized the privacy implications of detailed digital records.
United States v. Wurie, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) |
Abstain |
United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012) |
Abstain |
Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018) |
Abstain |
United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973) |
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