Riley v. California (573 U.S. 373)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 25, 2014 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 573 U.S. 373 · 134 S. Ct. 2473
- Decided
- June 25, 2014
- Term
- October Term 2013
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Roberts
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court. These two cases raise a common question: whether the police may, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested. I A In the first case, petitioner David Riley was stopped by a police officer for driving with expired registration tags. In the course of the stop, the officer also learned that Riley's license had been suspended. The officer impounded Riley's car, pursuant to department policy, and another officer conducted an inventory search of the car. Riley was arrested for possession of concealed and loaded firearms when that search turned up two handguns under the car's hood. See Cal.Penal Code Ann. §§ 12025(a)(1), 12031(a)(1) (West 2009). An officer searched Riley incident to the arrest and found items associated with the "Bloods" street gang. He also seized a cell phone from Riley's pants pocket. According to Riley's uncontradicted assertion, the phone was a "smart phone," a cell phone with a broad range of other functions based on advanced computing capability, large storage capacity, and Internet connectivity. The officer accessed information on the phone and noticed that some words (presumably in text messages or a contacts list) were preceded by the letters "CK"-a label that, he believed, stood for "Crip Killers," a slang term for members of the…
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