WILL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS ABIDE BY THE NEW SUPREME COURT CELL PHONE SEARCH REQUIREMENTS

Will the Supreme Court's recent cell phone search decision really protect cell phone users from improper police searches? The good news is that the Supreme Court threw out the red hearing of officer safety which law enforcement often use as an excuse in warrantless searches. 

In the vast majority of cases a cell phone can not jeopardize officer safety. Yet cowardly courts would buy into the facetious arguments of prosecutors. Chief Justice Roberts noted the distinction between checking a cell phone to be certain there's not a dangerous razor blade hidden within as opposed to roaming thru the contents of a phone to randomly find unlawful acts. 

Justice Roberts' cell phone is safe

Further, Roberts noted that the potential for destroying incriminating evidence by remote wiping of the phone was unlikely and something that the officers could stop by simply taking out the phone battery or by slipping the phone in an aluminum case. For too many years judges have given law enforcement officers the benefit of the doubt in new technology even when logic, if not common sense, was strained.

Although the decision requires a search warrant to search the phone of a defendant for cell phone evidence Robert's left some leeway in a "now or never" situation and even then a worst case scenario would merely be that the evidence might not be useable to gain a conviction at trial. Roberts further noted that the cell phone of today are much more than phones with the capacity to show much more of a person's life, frame of mind, political standing and common interests.

In Florida the law has been settled for some time and at least one Tampa Bay, Florida judge had the courage to no longer allow officers to search based on a lie under oath. Last year the Florida Supreme Court made a similar decision to restrict warrantless cell phone searches when it threw out evidence gleaned from a cell phone in a robbery case. It's good that the United States Supreme Court has now settled the issue of personal privacy rights in favor of citizens as a decision for law enforcement would have reduced the privacy of every American.