Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Fourth Amendment

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

Cal. 2d: Search incident of cellphone for text messages 90 minutes after arrest was valid

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant's cellphone was seized from his person at the time of arrest, and it was searched incident to the arrest 90 minutes later. It was valid as a search incident. People v. Diaz, 2008 Cal. App. LEXIS 1164 (2d Dist. July 30, 2008). The court explains the rationale for cellphone search incident: (3) In reliance upon this authority, courts have upheld delayed warrantless searches of wallets (see, e.g., United States v. Passaro (9th Cir. 1980) 624 F.2d 938, 944), purses (People v. Decker (1986) 176 Cal.App.3d 1247, 1252 [222 Cal. Rptr. 689]), address books (United States v. Rodriguez (7th Cir. 1993) 995 F.2d 776, 777–778) and pagers (United States v. Chan (N.D.Cal. 1993) 830 F.Supp. 531, 536). Recently, one federal court applied the same rationale in upholding the warrantless search of a cell phone seized from the defendant incident to his arrest...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on August 02, 2008 (boomark / email).