United States Ninth Circuit

Denial of defendant's motion to suppress images of child pornography found during a warrantless search of the cell phone at a Border Patrol checkpoint's security office is reversed, where: 1) the warrantless search of the cell phone was not roughly contemporaneous with the defendant's arrest and, therefore, was not a search incident to arrest; 2) the government failed to show exigent circumstances requiring immediate police action, and even if the exigencies permitted a search of the phone to prevent the loss of call data, the scope of the search was impermissibly overbroad; and 3) cell phones are not containers for the purposes of the vehicle exception to the warrant requirement.

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/11/2014
• Published 12/11/2014

Judges

• Pregerson

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel