Riley v. California
Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that the warrantless search and seizure of the digital contents of a cell phone during an arrest is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.
| Riley v. California U.S. v. Wurie | |
|---|---|
| Argued April 29, 2014 Decided June 25, 2014 | |
| Full case name | David Leon Riley, Petitioner v. California; United States, Petitioner v. Brima Wurie |
| Docket nos. | 13-132 13-212 |
| Citations | 573 U.S. 373 (more) 134 S. Ct. 2473; 189 L. Ed. 2d 430 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | |
| Holding | |
| Police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Roberts, joined by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan |
| Concurrence | Alito (in part and in the judgment) |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. IV | |
The case arose from inconsistent rulings on cell phone searches from various state and federal courts. The Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Circuits had ruled that police officers can search cell phones incident to arrest under various standards. That rule was also accepted by the Supreme Courts of Georgia, Massachusetts, and California. On the other hand, the First Circuit and the Supreme Courts of Florida and Ohio disagreed and ruled that police needed a warrant to search the information on a suspect's phone. California had also proposed a state statute requiring police to obtain a warrant before searching the contents of "portable electronic devices".
Riley has been widely praised as “a sweeping victory for privacy rights” with legal scholars describing the decision as "the privacy gift that keeps on giving."