Riley v. California:
A Question for the Fourth Amendment
Anna T. Melton
CRIJ 1301
Professor Wagner
February 8, 2016
Riley v. California
A Question for the Fourth Amendment
Riley v. California (2014) was a landmark United States Supreme Court case where the Court upheld unanimously that it is unconstitutional to search or seize a cell phone during an arrest without a warrant. This brought into question the Fourth Amendment, and what all rights are protected. The main case that was looked at as setting a precedent for this type of arrest was Chimel v. California (1969). In Riley v. California, the San Diego Police pulled over David Riley in late August 2009 when it was noticed that he had expired registrations tags. At the time,
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California was heard by the Supreme Court, Riley stated that a smartphone and whatever it may contain does not provide a threat to police officers, therefore People v. Diaz does not apply. Jeffrey L. Fisher, a Stanford University law professor, served as Riley’s representation (Riley v. California, n.d.). He boiled his argument down to the searching of a cell phone is nothing more than an invasion of privacy, as most people now have their entire life on their personal devices (Liptak, 2014).
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the opinion of the United States Supreme Court, concluding that a warrant is required to search a mobile phone. In relation to Chimel v. California, a cell phone can in no way be a weapon against a police officer. Where police officers cannot actually look at what is on a cell phone, they can look at the physicality of a cell phone, i.e. the outside of it in order to ensure there are no hidden weapons (Wolf,
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However, protection of our citizen’s privacy is of utmost importance. Police and other law enforcement agencies have to learn to work with and around the laws in order to get their job done.
References
Barnes & Thornburg LLP (2014, July 3). Your Cell Phone Privacy-Riley v. California & the Post-Digital Privacy Era. The National Law Review. Retrieved from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/your-cell-phone-riley-v-california-post-digital-privacy-era Liptak, A. (2014, June 25). Major Ruling Shields Privacy of Cellphones: Supreme Court
Says Phones Can’t Be Searched Without a Warrant. The New York
Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/us/supreme-court-cellphones-search-privacy.html?_r=1 Ricciuti, M. D. & Parker, K.D. (2014). My Phone Is My Castle: Supreme Court
Decides that Cell Phones Seized Incident to Arrest Cannot Be Subject to
Routine Warrantless Searches. Boston Bar Journal, 58(4). Retrieved from http://bostonbarjournal.com/tag/riley-v-california/ Riley v. California. (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved November 11, 2015, from https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-132 Wolf, R. (2013, September 9). Your Cellphone: Private or Not? USA Today. Retrieved
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Also another fact one of the justices, Justice O’Connor disagreed with the outcome of the case. She said it was called a, “Cursory Inspection” she went on saying the officers could do the search based on reasonable suspicion that the object was evidence of a criminal activity.
Gonzales v. Oregon is a Supreme Court case that took place in 2005, with the verdict and dissenting opinions stated in January of 2006. The case is about the General Attorney’s ruling of a medical practice to be illegal. The Attorney General at the time was John Ashcroft, appointed under President George Bush Jr., who authorized that the usage of lethal doses of medicine on terminally-ill patients to be illegal under the Controlled Substance Act in 1970. The Controlled Substance Act of 1970 is a federal United States drug policy which limits the usage of certain medications in a variety of ways. (Oyez, n.d.).
There have been many Supreme Court cases that dealed with many concepts of the law, like obscenity for example. As a matter of fact, obscenity is a concept that Miller v. California deals with. To be more specific, this case deals with what is considered obscene, and if the specific obscenity mentioned in this case is protected by the first amendment, the freedom of speech. I will now explain this case in more depth.
The logic used by the Court in order to justify their conclusion is fraught with weak reasoning and dangerous interpretations of the Constitution. It violates the precedent set in Miranda and seems tainted with a desire to justify consent searches at any cost. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte is a decidedly pro-order case because it qualifies another excuse police can raise to search a citizen, but it is also dangerous because it shows that the Court is not the unbiased referee between liberty and democracy that it should be.
In the case Bumper v. North Carolina, Wayne Darnell Bumper was charged and arrested on charges of rape and assault on a child. While the police officers were investigating the case they searched Mrs. Hattie Leath- Bumper’s grandmother‘s home- where he was living at the time. Mrs. Leath consented the police to search her home after the officers said they had a warrant, which they did not have. The officers found a rifle in the kitchen and proceeded to take the gun in as evidence. The rifle was then introduced into Bumper’s trial as evidence. The trial court allowed the gun to be entered in as evidence because Leath gave consent to the officers to search her home.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution states that people have the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” but the issue at hand here is whether this also applies to the searches of open fields and of objects in plain view and whether the fourth amendment provides protection over these as well. In order to reaffirm the courts’ decision on this matter I will be relating their decisions in the cases of Oliver v. United States (1984), and California v. Greenwood (1988) which deal directly with the question of whether a person can have reasonable expectations of privacy as provided for in the fourth amendment with regards to objects in an open field or in plain view.
On February 28, 2018 Judge William H Orrick was presented a case of the City and County of San Francisco v. Sessions and State of CA v. Sessions. [http://www.uscourts.gov/cameras-courts/city-and-county-san-francisco-v-sessions-and-state-ca-v-sessions] The procedural posture was a motion to dismiss and the issue at hand was regarding immigration status verses enforcement.
The greatest irony of all lies in one word “protection”, the police are meant to protect us and yet it is more likely that we should be killed by one of them than it is we be killed by a terrorist, and the government who protects us by spying on us. Our privacy is our right, not our privilege, and the government should not protect our rights, by violating them.
modern law, they have a variety of items, including intoxicating liquors, gambling implements, counterfeiters' tools, burglars' tools, smuggled goods, obscene literature, narcotics, illegal firearms and any article the possession of which is a crime or which may be used in evidence. (Encarta Online) The warrant must specify the place where the search is to be made and the property to be seized. An officer cannot get a warrant from a judge in any circumstance. (Grolier Encyclopedia) The officer may have to give a reasonable cause. As ruled in the case of Illinois v. Gates in 1983, ?to establish probable cause, one must show a probability of criminal activity; a prima facie hearing is not required.? (Illinois v. Gates) The accused has the right to fight the grounds when the war...
The United States Supreme Court assists law enforcement by ignoring the fourteenth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures. If the police thinks a person
Terry v. Ohio was in 1968 it had a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that the fourth amendment prohibition on the unreasonable search and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the streets and frisks him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer had a reasonable suspicion of that person had commit a crime in which he can be belief that the person may have a weapons that can be dangerous to a police officer.
Supreme Court made it significantly easier for police to conduct a warrantless search of a home when one of the two occupant’s objects to a police search but the other does not (Richey N.P.). If one of them objects it means they just don’t want them searching or they have something to hide from them. The question in the case, Fernandez V California (12-7822), was whether the girlfriend’s agreement to allow the police to search the apartment overcame Fernandez's fourth amendment right to be free from such police intrusions without a warrant (Richey N.P.). There were 2 occupants and one of them agreed to the search while the other didn’t and they were deciding if the girl’s decision was more important than a man’s fourth amendment right. In the case Fernandez was refusing to let the law enforcers in his door while his girlfriend said it was ok. Fernandez is a suspect already and his girlfriend doesn’t know so she agrees to let them search. The Supreme Court told the law enforcers that they had to honor the decision of Fernandez when he was physically present at the location to be searched. Since Fernandez was physically present, the police had to respect his wishes. The decision significantly narrows a 2006 high court decision in which the justices ruled that police could not search a residence when one of the two occupants objects to such a search (Richey
But because of how often technology changes, how can it be known that the laws made so long ago can still uphold proper justice? With the laws that are in place now, it’s a constant struggle to balance security with privacy. Privacy laws should be revised completely in order to create a better medium between security and privacy. A common misconception of most is that a happy medium of privacy and security is impossible to achieve. However, as Daniel Solove said, “Protecting privacy doesn’t need to mean scuttling a security measure.
Police decisions can affect life, liberty, and property, and as guardians of the interests of the public, police must maintain high standards of integrity. Police discretion concerning how to act in a given situation can often lead to ethical misconduct (Banks 29).
The increased presence of surveillance cameras is almost compared to George Orwell’s novel from 1984, where he imagined a future in which people would be monitored and controlled by the government. One question that needs to be asked is: do the benefits of law enforcement security cameras outweigh the negative side to it? Although the invasion of privacy is a serious argument against law enforcement cameras, it should be seen as a valuable tool to help fight crime. As long as surveillance cameras are in public places and not in people's homes, privacy advocates should not be concerned. There are many benefits to having law enforcement security cameras, which people take for granted, and are quick to point out the negative.