Meanwhile Back At The Supreme Court .... Cell Phone Searches

While everyone's attention was (rightly) focused on President Obama's major speech on NSA reforms, the Supreme Court quietly granted certiorari in a set of important digital rights cases.  The two cases Riley v. California  and US v. Wurie will involve a doctrine known as "search incident to arrest."  Under standard Fourth Amendment doctrine, when an individual is arrested his person may be searched incident to that arrest -- even though the searching authority did not have a warrant to do so.  Traditionally searches incident to arrest are justified as "reasonable" on two interrelated grounds -- one of safety (does the arrestee have a gun?) and one of efficacy (we want to inventory his person so that when he is released he may not complain that his money is missing).  As you might expect, such searches often turn up additional evidence of crimes different from the one for which the arrest was made -- and they are therefore highly prized as investigative tools. In Riley and Wurie the Court will address a question that has divided the lower courts -- during a search incident to arrest, may the contents of a cellphone be examined without a warrant.  Again, the value of such a search can be quite high -- incriminating pictures or phone numbers of other criminal contacts can be stored on the phone as can be notes and details of transactions.  On the other hand, given that roughly 91% of Americans own cell phones, the implications for the doctrine are pretty broad.  The cases will be argued in April and I imagine they will attract a large number of amicus filings on both sides of the question.