Warrantless Cellphone Search Decision: Resources

Last week, on June 25, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Riley v. California, a decision combining California and Massachusetts cases challenging the warrantless search an arrestee’s cellphone incident to arrest. The Court unanimously concluded that the police are not entitled to search a cell phone incident to arrest without a warrant, absent exigent circumstance, and as such must seek a properly executed warrant to search a cellphone.  This decision was almost instantaneously covered by a number of newspapers, reporters, and bloggers, and we bring you a short compilation of some of the online coverage.

The U.S. Supreme Court Decisions

• Riley v. California, No. 13-132 and 13-212, 2014 BL 175779, 2014 WL 2864483, 2014 U.S. LEXIS 4497 (U.S. June 25, 2014).
• Riley v. California, LII Supreme Court Bulletin.
• Riley v. California, OYEZ Project.
• Adam Gershowitz, Symposium: Surprising Unanimity, Even More Surprising Clarity, SCOTUS Blog (June 26, 2014).

Pre-Decision Coverage

• Nina Totenberg, Supreme Court Considers Limits on Warrantless Cellphone Searches, NPR Law (Apr. 14, 2014).
• Thomas Kapp, Search of Closed Containers Incident to Arrest: Is a Cell Phone Just Another Container? (Mar. 13, 2013) (mapping the history and evolution of warrantless searches of closed containers up until Riley v. California was filed).
• Jim Harper, Ilya Shapiro & Gabriel Latner, Riley v. California, CATO Institute: Legal Briefs (Mar. 10, 2014).

Post-Decision Newspaper Articles & Blog Posts

• Kristen J. Matthews, Landmark Supreme Court Ruling Protects Cell Phones from Warrantless Searches, National Law Review (June 30, 2014).
• Marjorie Cohn, Police State America: Will the U.S. Supreme Court Apply Cell Phone Privacy to NSA Metadata Collection?, Global Research Canada (June 30, 2014).
• Orin Kerr, Initial Impressions from the Oral Argument in the Supreme Court Cell Phone Search Cases, The Washington Post (June 29, 2014).
• Bennett L. Gershman, Smartphones, Smart Ruling, HuffPost (June 27, 2014).
• William Welsh, Warrantless Cellphone Searches Illegal, Supreme Court Rules, Information Week: Government (June 26, 2014).
• Orin Kerr, Are Jones and Riley Explained by the Justices Imagining Themselves as Targets?, The Washington Post (June 26, 2014).
• Andy Greenberg, Why the Supreme Court May Finally Protect Your Privacy in the Cloud, WIRED (June 26, 2014).
• Jess Bravin, Supreme Court: Police Need Warrants to Search Cellphone Data, WSJ Online (June 25, 2014).
• Bill Mears, Supreme Court: Police Need Warrant to Search Cell Phones, CNN Justice (June 25, 2014).
• John Cassidy, The Supreme Court Gets It Right On Cell-Phone Privacy, The New Yorker (June 25, 2014).
• Orin Kerr, The Significance of Riley, The Washington Post (June 25, 2014).
• Adam Liptak, Major Ruling Shields Privacy of Cellphones: Supreme Court Says Phones Can’t Be Searched Without a Warrant, New York Times (June 25, 2014).
• Eric Posner, How Exactly Does This Court Know How Significant the Privacy Interest Is?, Slate.com (June 25, 2014).
• Damon Root, ‘Get a Warrant’: John Roberts Gives the Cops a Benchslap in Riley v. California, Hit & Run Blog (June 25, 2014). 
• Robert Barnes, Supreme Court to Decide Case on Police Cellphone Searches, The Washington Post (Jan. 1, 2014).

Click here, to explore recent (2014 on) scholarly articles on the subject.