Everyone has a smartphone, but not everyone’s smartphone is protected.

The issue in this case is, “Does a warrantless search of a suspect's smartphone leading to

an arrest of the suspect violate the fourth amendment?” David Riley got his car impounded

because he was driving with expired car tags and drivers licence. When the police impounded his

car, they routinely searched it and found two firearms inside of his car. Then, officers arrested

Riley for concealed weapons and took his smartphone. When looking through his phone, that had

no passcode, the police found evidence that may have link Riley to a gang. After the police

found a photo on Riley’s phone that linked him to a car used in an earlier gang shooting. They

then used Riley’s phone records to place him at the scene of the crime. The rule of law in this

case, the fourth amendment, states that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy and

searches and warrants, can only happen if there is probable cause. In this case, there was enough

probable cause for all of the searches that were done. Riley was under arrest for multiple charges,

so the police could reasonably check his phone to make sure we wasn’t violating any other law.

Second, it is routine to search people’s immediate control, this mostly means that they will

search your pockets, bags and anything that is on your person. This will most likely include your

cell phone. So the police can take your cell phone away. If there is no password on it they should

be allowed to look at it because it was just as if someone else took your phone, they would have

access to everything that was on it.

There are many cases that can be used as precedent for Riley v. California. The first is

Chimel v. California, where Chimel was put under arrest for burglary. When the police asked to

search her house, they were denied. Afterwards the police searched the entire house anyways.

When the case went to court, the judge decided that officers only had the right to search what
was in an arrestee’s immediate control if the officer could be harmed in any way or if the arrestee

could potentially destroy evidence. In Riley v. California, officers searched Riley’s phone for

potential evidence that could have been destroyed by a third party elsewhere. Cell phones are

now linked to the cloud and the global internet and things that are on your phone can be deleted

from a laptop, tablet, or etc. The second case, Horton v. California, officers only had a warrant to

search for stolen property, but they found illegal firearms instead and arrested the person in

question. The court ruled that this was ok, because the items were in plain sight and the officers

did not have to break in or do anything extra to get to these items. This helps our case, because

the officers did not have to get past a passcode or do anything extra to look into Riley’s phone.

The previous court’s decision is correct for multiple reasons. The previous court decided

that the search was lawful and that is correct. The first reason, is that the police had reasonable

suspicion to think that Riley could have committed other crimes, which he did. The second

reason, is that the police are allowed to search what is in plain sight as stated in Horton v.

California. Riley’s cell phone had no passcode on it, so anyone could have looked at the police

looked at. The police did not take any extra steps to obtain this information. The third reason, is

that if the police had not looked at Riley’s phone to get that information it could have gotten

deleted by a third party source. Which would have destroyed the evidence. These are all viable

reasons to why the previous court's decision should be upheld and that the search is lawful.

In conclusion, all of the precedent and information leads us to find the search lawful.

Anyone could have obtained the information that the police obtained. The police had reasonable

suspicion that lead them to get the information from his phone. Lastly, the information had the

potential to be deleted and destroyed. So it was necessary for the police to search his phone then
in order to get the information before it could get deleted. Because of all of the information that

was set forth the previous courts decision should be upheld.