Title: P. v. Diaz

State: california

Issuer: California Supreme Court

Document:

Filed 1/3/11 
 
 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
 
THE PEOPLE, 
) 
 
 
) 
 
Plaintiff and Respondent, 
) 
 
 
) 
S166600 
 
v. 
) 
 
 
) 
Ct.App. 2/6 B203034 
GREGORY DIAZ, 
) 
 
) 
Ventura County 
 
Defendant and Appellant. 
) 
Super. Ct. No. 2007015733 
 
____________________________________) 
 
We granted review in this case to decide whether the Fourth Amendment to 
the United States Constitution permits law enforcement officers, approximately 90 
minutes after lawfully arresting a suspect and transporting him to a detention 
facility, to conduct a warrantless search of the text message folder of a cell phone 
they take from his person after the arrest.  We hold that, under the United States 
Supreme Court‟s binding precedent, such a search is valid as being incident to a 
lawful custodial arrest.  We affirm the Court of Appeal‟s judgment. 
FACTUAL BACKGROUND 
 
 
About 2:50 p.m. on April 25, 2007, Senior Deputy Sheriff Victor Fazio of 
the Ventura County Sheriff‟s Department witnessed defendant Gregory Diaz 
participating in a police informant‟s controlled purchase of Ecstasy.  Defendant 
drove the Ecstasy‟s seller to the location of the sale, which then took place in the 
backseat of the car defendant was driving.  Immediately after the sale, Fazio, who 
had listened in on the transaction through a wireless transmitter the informant was 
2 
wearing, stopped the car defendant was driving and arrested defendant for being a 
coconspirator in the sale of drugs.  Six tabs of Ecstasy were seized in connection 
with the arrest, and a small amount of marijuana was found in defendant‟s pocket.  
Defendant had a cell phone on his person.  
 
Fazio transported defendant to a sheriff‟s station, where a detective seized 
the cell phone from defendant‟s person and gave it to Fazio.  Fazio put it with the 
other evidence and, at 4:18 p.m., interviewed defendant.  Defendant denied having 
knowledge of the drug transaction.  After the interview, about 4:23 p.m., Fazio 
looked at the cell phone‟s text message folder and discovered a message that said 
“6 4 80.”1  Based on his training and experience, Fazio interpreted the message to 
mean “[s]ix pills of Ecstasy for $80.”  Within minutes of discovering the message 
(and less than 30 minutes after the cell phone‟s discovery), Fazio showed the 
message to defendant.  Defendant then admitted participating in the sale of 
Ecstasy. 
 
Defendant was charged with selling a controlled substance (Health & Saf. 
Code, § 11379, subd. (a)).  He pleaded not guilty and moved to suppress the fruits 
of the cell phone search — the text message and the statements he made when 
confronted with it — arguing that the warrantless search of the cell phone violated 
the Fourth Amendment.  The trial court denied the motion, explaining:  “The 
defendant was under arrest for a felony charge involving the sale of drugs.  His 
property was seized from him.  Evidence was seized from him.  [¶] . . . [I]ncident 
to the arrest[,] search of his person and everything that that turned up is really fair 
game in terms of being evidence of a crime or instrumentality of a crime or 
whatever the theory might be.  And under these circumstances I don‟t believe 
there‟s authority that a warrant was required.”  Defendant then withdrew his not 
                                              
1  
Fazio had to manipulate the phone and go to several different screens to 
access the text message folder.  He did not recall whether the cell phone was on 
when he picked it up to look through it.  
3 
guilty plea and pleaded guilty to transportation of a controlled substance.  The trial 
court accepted the plea, suspended imposition of sentence, and placed defendant 
on probation for three years.  
 
The Court of Appeal affirmed, finding that under governing high court 
precedent, because the cell phone “was immediately associated with [defendant‟s] 
person at the time of his arrest,” it was “properly subjected to a delayed 
warrantless search.”   We granted defendant‟s petition for review. 
DISCUSSION 
 
The Fourth Amendment provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure 
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and 
seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable 
cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be 
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”  Under this provision, as the 
United States Supreme Court has construed it, warrantless searches — i.e., 
“searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge 
or magistrate” — “are per se unreasonable . . . subject only to a few specifically 
established and well-delineated exceptions.”  (Katz v. United States (1967) 389 
U.S. 347, 357, fns. omitted.)   
 
One of the specifically established exceptions to the Fourth Amendment‟s 
warrant requirement is “a search incident to lawful arrest.”  (United States v. 
Robinson (1973) 414 U.S. 218, 224 (Robinson).)  This exception “has traditionally 
been justified by the reasonableness of searching for weapons, instruments of 
escape, and evidence of crime when a person is taken into official custody and 
lawfully detained.  [Citation.]”  (United States v. Edwards (1974) 415 U.S. 800, 
802-803 (Edwards).)  As the high court has explained:  “When a custodial arrest is 
made, there is always some danger that the person arrested may seek to use a 
weapon, or that evidence may be concealed or destroyed.  To safeguard himself 
and others, and to prevent the loss of evidence, it has been held reasonable for the 
arresting officer to conduct a prompt, warrantless „search of the arrestee‟s person 
4 
and the area “within his immediate control”  . . . .‟  [Citations.]  [¶]  Such searches 
may be conducted without a warrant, and they may also be made whether or not 
there is probable cause to believe that the person arrested may have a weapon or is 
about to destroy evidence.  The potential dangers lurking in all custodial arrests 
make warrantless searches of items within the „immediate control‟ area reasonable 
without requiring the arresting officer to calculate the probability that weapons or 
destructible evidence may be involved.  [Citations.]”  (United States v. Chadwick 
(1977) 433 U.S. 1, 14-15 (Chadwick).)2 
 
The People argue that the warrantless search in this case of the cell phone‟s 
text message folder was valid as a search incident to defendant‟s lawful arrest.3  
Defendant disagrees, arguing that the search “was too remote in time” to qualify as   
a valid search incident to his arrest.4  In making this argument, he emphasizes that 
the phone “was exclusively held in police custody well before the search of its text 
message folder.”  
 
Resolution of this issue depends principally on the high court‟s decisions in 
Robinson, Edwards, and Chadwick.  In Robinson, a police officer arrested the 
defendant for driving with a revoked operator‟s permit.  (Robinson, supra, 414 
U.S. at p. 220.)  The officer conducted a patdown search and felt an object he 
could not identify in the breast pocket of the defendant‟s coat.  He removed the 
                                              
2  
The area within an arrestee‟s immediate control is “ „the area from within 
which [the arrestee] might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.‟  
[Citations.]”  (Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 14.) 
3  
The People do not contest that defendant had a protected expectation of 
privacy in the contents of his text message folder.  For purposes of this opinion, 
we therefore assume defendant had such an expectation, and do not consider the 
issue. 
4  
Defendant does not question the legality of either his arrest or his phone‟s 
warrantless seizure.  He challenges only the validity of the warrantless search of 
the phone‟s text message folder. 
5 
object, which turned out to be a crumpled up cigarette package.  He felt the 
package and determined it contained objects that were not cigarettes.  He then 
opened the package and found 14 heroin capsules.  (Id. at pp. 222-223.)  The high 
court held that the warrantless search of the package was valid under the Fourth 
Amendment.  (Robinson, supra, at p. 224.)  It explained that, incident to a lawful 
custodial arrest, police have authority to conduct “a full search of the [arrestee‟s] 
person.”  (Id. at p. 235.)  This authority, the court continued, exists whether or not 
the police have reason to believe the arrestee has on his or her person either 
evidence or weapons.  “A custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause is a 
reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a 
search [of the person] incident to the arrest requires no additional justification.  It 
is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and . . . in 
the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an 
exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a 
„reasonable‟ search under that Amendment.”  (Ibid.)  Applying these principles, 
the court held:  “The search of [the defendant‟s] person . . . and the seizure from 
him of the heroin, were permissible under established Fourth Amendment law. . . .  
Having in the course of a lawful search come upon the crumpled package of 
cigarettes, [the officer] was entitled to inspect it; and when his inspection revealed 
the heroin capsules, he was entitled to seize them as „fruits, instrumentalities, or 
contraband‟ probative of criminal conduct.  [Citations.]”  (Id. at p. 236, fns. 
omitted.) 
 
In Edwards, after lawfully arresting the defendant late one night for 
attempting to break into a post office, police took him to jail and placed him in a 
cell.  (Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at p. 801.)  Ten hours later, suspecting that his 
clothes might contain paint chips from the window through which he had tried to 
enter, police made the defendant change into new clothes and held his old ones as 
evidence.  (Id. at p. 802; see also id. at p. 810 (dis. opn. of Stewart, J.).)  
Subsequent examination of the old clothes revealed paint chips matching samples 
6 
taken from the window.  (Id. at p. 802.)  The high court held that both the 
warrantless seizure of the clothes and the warrantless search of them for paint 
chips were valid as a search incident to lawful arrest.  (Id. at pp. 802-809.)  It 
expressly rejected the argument that, because the search occurred “after the 
administrative mechanics of arrest ha[d] been completed and the prisoner [was] 
incarcerated,” the search of the clothes was too remote in time to qualify as a 
search incident to arrest.  (Id. at p. 804.)  The court explained:  “[O]nce the 
accused is lawfully arrested and is in custody, the effects in his possession at the 
place of detention that were subject to search at the time and place of his arrest 
may lawfully be searched and seized without a warrant even though a substantial 
period of time has elapsed between the arrest and subsequent administrative 
processing, on the one hand, and the taking of the property for use as evidence, on 
the other.  This is true where the clothing or effects are immediately seized upon 
arrival at the jail, held under the defendant‟s name in the „property room‟ of the 
jail, and at a later time searched and taken for use at the subsequent criminal trial.  
The result is the same where the property is not physically taken from the 
defendant until sometime after his incarceration.”  (Id. at pp. 807-808, fns. 
omitted, italics added.) 
 
In Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. 1, the high court cut back on the seemingly 
broad rule Edwards had announced.  In Chadwick, federal narcotics agents 
observed the defendants load a 200-pound, double-locked footlocker into the trunk 
of a car.  Having probable cause to believe the footlocker contained illegal 
contraband, the agents arrested the defendants and transported them to a federal 
building, along with the car and the footlocker. There, 90 minutes after the arrest 
and without obtaining a warrant or consent, the agents opened the footlocker and 
found marijuana inside.  (Chadwick, supra, at pp. 4-5.)  The high court rejected 
the argument that the warrantless search was valid as a search incident to arrest.  It 
first reaffirmed the principle that, because of “[t]he potential dangers lurking in all 
custodial arrests,” police may conduct a warrantless search incident to arrest 
7 
“whether or not there is probable cause to believe that the person arrested may 
have a weapon or is about to destroy evidence.”  (Id. at p. 14.)  “However,” the 
court explained, “warrantless searches of luggage or other property seized at the 
time of an arrest cannot be justified as incident to that arrest either if the „search is 
remote in time or place from the arrest,‟ [citation], or no exigency exists.  Once 
law enforcement officers have reduced luggage or other personal property not 
immediately associated with the person of the arrestee to their exclusive control, 
and there is no longer any danger that the arrestee might gain access to the 
property to seize a weapon or destroy evidence, a search of that property is no 
longer an incident of the arrest.”  (Id. at p. 15, italics added.)  Under this principle, 
the court held, because “the search was conducted more than an hour after federal 
agents had gained exclusive control of the footlocker and long after [the 
defendants] were securely in custody,” it could not “be viewed as incidental to the 
arrest or as justified by any other exigency.”  (Ibid.)  In reaching this conclusion, 
the court did not overrule Robinson or Edwards, but distinguished them as 
involving warrantless searches “of the person” rather than searches “of 
possessions within an arrestee‟s immediate control.”  (Chadwick, at p. 16, fn. 10.)  
The former searches, the court explained, are “justified by” the “reduced 
expectations of privacy caused by the arrest”; the latter are not.  (Ibid.)  Thus, the 
defendants‟ “privacy interest in the contents of the footlocker was not eliminated 
simply because they were under arrest.”  (Ibid.)  
 
Under these decisions, the key question in this case is whether defendant‟s 
cell phone was “personal property . . . immediately associated with [his] person” 
(Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 15) like the cigarette package in Robinson and 
the clothes in Edwards.  If it was, then the delayed warrantless search was a valid 
search incident to defendant‟s lawful custodial arrest.  If it was not, then the 
search, because it was “ „remote in time [and] place from the arrest,‟ ” “cannot be 
8 
justified as incident to that arrest” unless an “exigency exist[ed].”5  (Chadwick, 
supra, at p. 15.) 
 
We hold that the cell phone was “immediately associated with 
[defendant‟s] person” (Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 15), and that the 
warrantless search of the cell phone therefore was valid.  As the People explain, 
the cell phone “was an item [of personal property] on [defendant‟s] person at the 
time of his arrest and during the administrative processing at the police station.”  
In this regard, it was like the clothing taken from the defendant in Edwards and the 
cigarette package taken from the defendant‟s coat pocket in Robinson, and it was 
unlike the footlocker in Chadwick, which was separate from the defendants‟ 
persons and was merely within the “area” of their “ „immediate control.‟ ”  
(Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 15.)  Because the cell phone was immediately 
associated with defendant‟s person, Fazio was “entitled to inspect” its contents 
without a warrant (Robinson, supra, 414 U.S. at p. 236) at the sheriff‟s station 90 
minutes after defendant‟s arrest, whether or not an exigency existed.6 
                                              
5  
The approximately 90-minute delay between defendant‟s arrest and the 
search of his cell phone was substantially similar to the 90-minute delay the high 
court held to be too remote in Chadwick. 
6  
Given our conclusion, we need not address the People‟s argument that an 
exigency existed because a cell phone‟s contents “are dynamic in nature and 
subject to change without warning — by the replacement of old data with new 
incoming calls or messages; by a mistaken push of a button; by the loss of power; 
by a person contacting the cellular phone provider; or by a person pre-selecting the 
„cleanup‟ function on the cellular phone, which limits the length of time messages 
are stored before they are automatically deleted.”  We note, however, that the 
People have offered no evidence to support this claim.  Nor have they offered 
evidence as to whether text messages deleted from a cell phone may be obtained 
from the cell phone‟s provider.  (See Orso, Cellular Phones, Warrantless 
Searches, and the New Frontier of Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence (2010) 50 
Santa Clara L.Rev. 183, 199 [“text messages are feasibly accessible for about two 
weeks from the cellular provider”].) 
9 
 
In arguing otherwise, defendant first asserts that, in deciding whether his 
cell phone is “the equivalent of” the cigarette package in Robinson or the 
footlocker in Chadwick, we should focus on its “character,” not on the mere fact 
he was carrying it on his person.  As defendant interprets the high court cases, a 
warrant is necessary for a delayed search unless the seized item is “clothing, or an 
article or container typically kept on or inside of clothing, or otherwise by its very 
nature carried on the arrestee‟s person.”  For two reasons, defendant argues, cell 
phones do not meet these criteria.  First, they “are not necessarily or routinely[] 
worn, carried in a pocket, or attached to a person or his clothes,” but are “more 
often kept near [their] owner[s], within [their] reach . . . inside a briefcase, 
backpack, or purse, or on a car seat or table, or plugged into a power source, or 
stashed inside any manner of separate bags or carrying containers.”  Second, cell 
phones “contain[] quantities of personal data unrivaled by any conventional item 
of evidence traditionally considered to be „immediately associated with the person 
of the arrestee,‟ such as an article of clothing, a wallet, or a crumpled cigarette box 
found in an arrestee‟s pocket,” and therefore implicate heightened “privacy 
concerns” that warrant treating them “like . . . the footlocker in Chadwick.”7  The 
dissent endorses defendant‟s latter point, asserting that all cell phones should be 
exempt from the rule of Robinson, Edwards, and Chadwick, because the amount 
of personal information cell phones can store “dwarfs that which can be carried on 
the person in a spatial container.”  (Dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at p. 8.) 
 
The relevant high court decisions do not support the view that whether 
police must get a warrant before searching an item they have properly seized from 
an arrestee’s person incident to a lawful custodial arrest depends on the item‟s 
                                              
7  
Defendant‟s argument implicitly recognizes that courts commonly hold that 
delayed warrantless searches of wallets found on arrestees‟ persons are valid 
searches incident to arrest.  (See, e.g., United States v. Passaro (9th Cir. 1980) 624 
F.2d 938, 943-944.) 
10 
character, including its capacity for storing personal information.  As noted above, 
Chadwick explains that a delayed warrantless search “of the person” (Chadwick, 
supra, 433 U.S. at p. 16, fn. 10) — which includes property “immediately 
associated with the person” at the time of arrest (id. at p. 15), but excludes 
property that is only “within an arrestee‟s immediate control” (id. at p. 16, fn. 
10) — is valid because of “reduced expectations of privacy caused by the arrest.”  
(Ibid.)  Robinson states that if a custodial arrest is lawful, then a “full” search of 
the arrestee‟s person “requires no additional justification.”  (Robinson, supra, 414 
U.S. at p. 235.)  Edwards states that “once the accused is lawfully arrested and is 
in custody, the effects in his possession at the place of detention that were subject 
to search at the time and place of his arrest may lawfully be searched and seized 
without a warrant even though a substantial period of time has elapsed between 
the arrest and subsequent administrative processing, on the one hand, and the 
taking of the property for use as evidence, on the other.”  (Edwards, supra, 415 
U.S. at p. 807.)  Nothing in these decisions even hints that whether a warrant is 
necessary for a search of an item properly seized from an arrestee‟s person 
incident to a lawful custodial arrest depends in any way on the character of the 
seized item. 
 
Moreover, in analogous contexts, the high court has expressly rejected the 
view that the validity of a warrantless search depends on the character of the 
searched item.  In United States v. Ross (1982) 456 U.S. 798, 825 (Ross), the court 
held that police who have probable cause to believe a lawfully stopped car 
contains contraband may conduct a warrantless search of any compartment or 
container in the car that may conceal the object of the search.  As relevant here, 
the court stated that whether a particular container may be searched without a 
warrant does not depend on the character of the container, explaining:  “[A] 
constitutional distinction between „worthy‟ and „unworthy‟ containers would be 
improper.  Even though such a distinction perhaps could evolve in a series of cases 
in which paper bags, locked trunks, lunch buckets, and orange crates were placed 
11 
on one side of the line or the other, the central purpose of the Fourth Amendment 
forecloses such a distinction.”  (Id. at p. 822, fn. omitted.)  “The scope of a 
warrantless search of an automobile thus is not defined by the nature of the 
container in which the contraband is secreted.”8  (Ross, at p. 824.)  In New York v. 
Belton (1981) 453 U.S. 454 (Belton), the court held that police making a lawful 
custodial arrest of a car‟s occupant “may, as a contemporaneous incident of that 
arrest,” “examine the contents of any containers found within the passenger 
compartment.”  (Id. at p. 460, italics added.)  As relevant here, the court rejected 
the proposition that whether a particular container may be searched without a 
warrant depends on the extent of the arrestee‟s reasonable expectation of privacy 
in that container, explaining:  “[A]ny container[] . . . [in] the passenger 
compartment . . . may . . . be searched whether it is open or closed, since the 
justification for the search is not that the arrestee has no privacy interest in the 
container, but that the lawful custodial arrest justifies the infringement of any 
privacy interest the arrestee may have.”9  (Belton, at pp. 460-461, italics added.)  
                                              
8  
In reaching this conclusion, the high court in Ross rejected the view of 
several lower court judges who had concluded that, based on differing 
expectations of privacy, the warrantless search of a brown paper bag in Ross‟s 
stopped car was valid, but the warrantless search of a zippered leather pouch was 
not.  (Ross, supra, 456 U.S. at p. 802.) 
9  
In Arizona v. Gant (2009) __ U.S. __ [129 S.Ct. 1710, 1714], the high court 
limited Belton, supra, 453 U.S. 454, by holding that police may not search 
containers in a vehicle‟s passenger compartment “incident to a recent occupant‟s 
arrest after the arrestee has been secured and cannot access the interior of the 
vehicle,” unless “it is reasonable to believe that evidence of the offense of arrest 
might be found in the vehicle.”  At the same time, the court reaffirmed Belton‟s 
holding that whether a particular container may be searched does not depend on its 
character or the extent of the arrestee‟s expectation of privacy in it.  (Gant, 129 
S.Ct. at p. 1720 [in permissible warrantless search, police may search “every 
purse, briefcase, or other container within” the car‟s passenger compartment].)  
Gant is not otherwise relevant here, as it involved a search of the area within an 
arrestee‟s immediate control, not of the arrestee‟s person.  (Id. at p. 1714.) 
12 
Under Ross, Belton, and the other high court decisions discussed above, there is no 
legal basis for holding that the scope of a permissible warrantless search of an 
arrestee‟s person, including items immediately associated with the arrestee‟s 
person, depends on the nature or character of those items. 
 
Regarding the particular focus of defendant and the dissent on the alleged 
storage capacity of cell phones, for several reasons, the argument is unpersuasive.  
First, the record contains no evidence regarding the storage capacity of cell phones 
in general or of defendant‟s cell phone in particular.  Second, neither defendant 
nor the dissent persuasively explains why the sheer quantity of personal 
information should be determinative.  Even “small spatial container[s]” (dis. opn. 
of Werdegar, J., post, at p. 3) that hold less information than cell phones may 
contain highly personal, intimate and private information, such as photographs, 
letters, or diaries.10  If, as the high court held in Ross, “a traveler who carries a 
toothbrush and a few articles of clothing in a paper bag or knotted scarf [has] an 
equal right to conceal his possessions from official inspection as the sophisticated 
executive with the locked attaché case” (Ross, supra, 456 U.S. at p. 822), then 
travelers who carry sophisticated cell phones have no greater right to conceal 
personal information from official inspection than travelers who carry such 
                                              
10  
The dissent does not question that police may examine personal 
photographs found upon an arrestee‟s person, but objects that the high court has 
not held that police may read the contents of a letter or diary seized from an 
arrestee‟s person.  (Dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at p. 8, fn. 7.)  However, 
several of the court of appeals decisions the high court in Edwards cited with 
approval on the issue of delayed searches (Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at pp. 803-
804, fn. 4) upheld the warrantless examination, incident to arrest, of diaries or 
personal papers found upon the arrestee‟s person.  (See United States v. Gonzalez-
Perez (5th Cir. 1970) 426 F.2d 1283, 1285-1287 [papers contained in pockets, 
wallets, and purse]; United States v. Frankenberry (2d Cir. 1967) 387 F.2d 337, 
339 [diary]; Cotton v. United States (9th Cir. 1967) 371 F.2d 385, 392 [papers 
contained in pockets]; Grillo v. United States (1st. Cir. 1964) 336 F.2d 211, 213 
[paper contained in wallet].) 
13 
information in “small spatial container[s].”11  (Dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at 
p. 3)  And if, as the high court held in Belton, differing expectations of privacy 
based on whether a container is open or closed are irrelevant to the validity of a 
warrantless search incident to arrest (Belton, supra, 453 U.S. at p. 461), then 
differing expectations of privacy based on the amount of information a particular 
item contains should also be irrelevant.  Regarding the quantitative analysis of 
defendant and the dissent, the salient point of the high court‟s decisions is that a 
“lawful custodial arrest justifies the infringement of any privacy interest the 
arrestee may have” in property immediately associated with his or her person at 
the time of arrest (ibid., italics added), even if there is no reason to believe the 
property contains weapons or evidence (Robinson, supra, 414 U.S. at p. 235).  
Third, even were it true that the amount of personal information some cell phones 
can store “dwarfs that which can be carried on the person in a spatial container” 
(dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at p. 8) — and, again, the record contains no 
evidence on this question — defendant and the dissent fail to explain why this 
circumstance would justify exempting all cell phones, including those with limited 
storage capacity, from the rule of Robinson, Edwards, and Chadwick.12  A 
warrantless search, incident to a lawful arrest, of a cell phone with limited storage 
                                              
11  
Were the rule otherwise, those carrying small spatial containers, which are 
legally subject to seizure and search if found upon the person at the time of arrest, 
would find little solace in discovering that their intimate secrets would have been 
protected if only they had used a device that could hold more personal 
information. 
12  
According to the United States Department of Justice, drug traffickers 
commonly use disposable cell phones, because they are relatively inexpensive and 
difficult to trace. (Nat. Drug Intelligence Center, U.S. Dept. J., Midwest High 
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis 2009 (Mar. 2009) 
 [as of Jan. 3, 2011].)  
Such phones have limited storage capacity.  (Ferro, Cell phones:  disposable 
mobile phone finally hits the US (May 31, 2008) TECH.BLORGE Technology 
News  [as of Jan. 3, 2011].) 
14 
capacity does not become constitutionally unreasonable simply because other cell 
phones may have a significantly greater storage capacity. 
 
Finally, adopting the quantitative approach of defendant and the dissent 
would create difficult line-drawing problems for both courts and police officers in 
the field.  How would a court faced with a similar argument as to another type of 
item determine whether the item‟s storage capacity is constitutionally significant?  
And how would an officer in the field determine this question upon arresting a 
suspect?  Defendant and the dissent offer no guidance on these questions.  Their 
approach would be “inherently subjective and highly fact specific, and would 
require precisely the sort of ad hoc determinations on the part of officers in the 
field and reviewing courts” that the high court has condemned.  (Thornton v. U.S. 
(2004) 541 U.S. 615, 623; see also Belton, supra, 453 U.S. at pp. 458-459.)  
Similar concerns led the high court in Robinson to adopt the “straightforward,” 
“easily applied, and predictably enforced” rule that “ „a full [warrantless] search of 
the person‟ ” is constitutionally permissible, and to “reject[] the suggestion that 
„there must be litigated in each case the issue of whether or not there was present 
one of the reasons supporting the authority for a search of the person incident to a 
lawful arrest.‟  [Citation.]”  (Belton, supra, 453 U.S. at p. 459, quoting Robinson, 
supra, 414 U.S. at p. 235.)  Adopting the quantitative approach of defendant and 
the dissent, under which the validity of a warrantless search would turn on the 
amount of personal information a particular item might contain, would be contrary 
to these high court precedents.  (See U.S. v. Murphy (4th Cir. 2009) 552 F.3d 405, 
411 [in upholding warrantless search incident to arrest, refusing to distinguish cell 
phones based on their “large” storage capacity because of difficulty quantifying 
that term “in any meaningful way”].)  
 
Defendant next argues that, in determining whether a warrant was 
necessary, we should distinguish between the cell phone itself and its contents.  
According to defendant, “[t]here is little about a cell phone‟s content that is 
conceptually linked to or inextricably associated with the physical body or the 
15 
inherent attributes of the arrestee‟s person.  A cell phone‟s data content is not at all 
like a pair of pants or even a piece of paper folded up inside a wallet that has been 
tucked inside the pocket of a pair of pants.”  It “cannot be worn or „carried‟ on 
one‟s person.”  “[T]he nature of the evidence that a cell phone may contain, and 
the fact that the cell phone „container‟ is readily differentiated from the cell phone 
„content,‟ warrants treating the cell phone content differently from the seized cell 
phone itself.”  The dissent makes a similar argument, distinguishing between “the 
arrestee‟s actual person” and the cell phone‟s content — i.e., the stored data —
 and arguing that the loss of “bodily privacy” that justifies a warrantless “search of 
an arrestee‟s person” upon arrest does not also justify the search of a cell phone 
found upon the arrestee‟s person.  (Dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at pp. 10-11.) 
 
These arguments are inconsistent with the high court‟s decisions.  Those 
decisions hold that the loss of privacy upon arrest extends beyond the arrestee‟s 
body to include “personal property . . . immediately associated with the person of 
the arrestee” at the time of arrest.  (Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 15.)  They also 
hold, contrary to the dissent‟s suggestion, that this loss of privacy entitles police 
not only to “seize” anything of importance they find on the arrestee‟s body (dis. 
opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at p. 10.), but also to open and examine what they find.  
Thus, the court in Robinson held that a police officer, despite seizing a cigarette 
package from the defendant‟s shirt pocket and reducing it to police control, did not 
need to obtain a warrant before opening the package and examining its contents.  
(Robinson, supra, 414 U.S. at p. 236.)  Similarly, the court in Edwards held that 
the police, despite seizing the defendant‟s clothes and reducing them to police 
control, did not need to obtain a warrant before subjecting those clothes to 
laboratory testing.  (Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at pp. 802-809.)  In both cases, the 
high court expressly refused to distinguish the contents of the seized item from 
either the seized item itself or “the arrestee‟s actual person.”  (Dis. opn. of 
Werdegar, post, at p. 11.)  As the court later explained in Belton in refusing to 
draw a constitutional distinction between the seizure of an item and a search of 
16 
that item:  “[U]nder this fallacious theory, no search or seizure incident to a lawful 
custodial arrest would ever be valid; by seizing an article even on the arrestee‟s 
person, an officer may be said to have reduced that article to his [or her] „exclusive 
control.‟ ”  (Belton, supra, 453 U.S. at pp. 461-462, fn. 5.)  Under these high court 
decisions, in determining the validity of a search incident to arrest, there is no 
legal basis for distinguishing the contents of an item found upon an arrestee‟s 
person from either the seized item itself or “the arrestee‟s actual person.”13   (Dis. 
opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at p. 11.)   
 
The dissent makes several arguments in addition to defendant‟s, but they 
are also unpersuasive.  Although conceding that Robinson, Edwards, and 
Chadwick, “reasonably read,” authorize delayed warrantless searches “of 
containers” immediately associated with an arrestee‟s person, the dissent asserts 
that cell phones are exempt from this rule because they are not “ „containers‟ 
within the meaning of the high court‟s search decisions.”  (Dis. opn. of Werdegar, 
J., post, at pp. 8-9.)  However, application of the rule of Robinson, Edwards, and 
Chadwick turns not on whether the item in question constitutes a “container,” but 
                                              
13  
Defendant insists that Edwards is “limited by its facts to the delayed search 
of an article of clothing.”  However, the court‟s discussion more broadly addressed 
“other belongings” (Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at p. 804) and “effects in [the 
arrestee‟s] possession” (id. at p. 807).  We do not consider ourselves free to 
disregard this discussion, especially in light of Robinson, which did not involve 
clothing, and Chadwick, which reaffirmed the validity of delayed warrantless 
searches of “personal property . . . immediately associated with the person of the 
arrestee.”  (Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 15.)  Defendant alternatively suggests 
that Edwards validates delayed warrantless searches only of “ „effects still in the 
defendant‟s possession at the place of detention, such as the defendant‟s 
clothing.‟ ”  Again, the high court‟s opinion is not so limited; the court stated that 
a delayed warrantless search is valid “where the clothing or effects are 
immediately seized upon arrival at the jail, held under the defendant‟s name in the 
„property room‟ of the jail, and at a later time searched and taken for use at the 
subsequent criminal trial.”  (Edwards, supra, at p. 807.) 
17 
on whether it is “property,” i.e., a “belonging[]” or an “effect[].”14  (Edwards, 
supra, 415 U.S. at pp. 803-804, 807-808; see also Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 
15; Robinson, supra, 414 U.S. at pp. 229, 232.)  The dissent‟s attempt to limit the 
reach of that rule to “clothing and small spatial containers” (dis. opn. of Werdegar, 
J., post, at p. 9) finds no support in the language of the high court‟s governing 
decisions.  In this respect, the language of those decisions is entirely consistent 
with the Fourth Amendment itself, which protects “[t]he right of the people to be 
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.”  (Italics added.)  It is also 
consistent with one of the justifications for the search incident to arrest exception:  
“the reasonableness of searching for . . . evidence of crime when a person is taken 
into official custody and lawfully detained.  [Citation.]”  (Edwards, supra, 415 
U.S. at pp. 802-803, italics added.)  Contrary to the dissent‟s analysis, whether an 
item of personal property constitutes a “container” bears no relation to this 
justification.15 
 
The dissent also errs in asserting that the high court‟s “rationale” for 
allowing delayed warrantless searches incident to arrest is of “doubtful” 
applicability to “items that are easily removed from the arrestee‟s possession and 
secured by the police.”  (Dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at p. 6.)  In Edwards, the 
                                              
14  
The word “container” does not appear in Robinson and Edwards.  It 
appears once in Chadwick, in a footnote where the high court explained that the 
defendant‟s principal privacy interest in the footlocker was “not in the container 
itself . . . but in its contents.”  (Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at pp. 13-14, fn. 8.) 
    
15  
The high court did discuss containers in the decisions we have cited as 
involving “analogous contexts.”  (Ante, at pp. 10-12.)  In this respect, our analysis 
is consistent with the weight of authority.  (State v. Boyd (Conn. 2010) 992 A.2d 
1071, 1089, fn. 17 [“A number of courts have analogized cell phones to closed 
containers and concluded that a search of their contents is, therefore, valid under 
the automobile exception or the exception for a search incident to arrest.”].)  
Moreover, contrary to the dissent‟s analysis, nothing in these analogous decisions 
purports to limit the rule of Robinson, Edwards, and Chadwick to property that 
classifies as a container. 
18 
high court declared it “plain that searches and seizures that [may] be made on the 
spot at the time of arrest may legally be conducted later when the accused arrives 
at the place of detention.”  (Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at p. 803.)  The rationale for 
this rule, the court explained, is that the arrestee is “no more imposed upon” by a 
delayed search “than he [or she] could have been” by a warrantless search “at the 
time and place of the arrest . . . .”  (Id. at p. 805.)  There is “little difference,” the 
court reasoned, between conducting the search at the place of arrest and 
conducting it later at the place of detention.  (Id. at p. 803.)  This analysis is 
consistent with the high court‟s earlier statement in Robinson that “[a] police 
officer‟s determination as to how and where to search the person of a suspect 
whom he has arrested is necessarily a quick ad hoc judgment which the Fourth 
Amendment does not require to be broken down in each instance into an analysis 
of each step in the search.”  (Robinson, supra, 414 U.S. at p. 235, first italics 
added.)  It is also consistent with the high court‟s subsequent statement in 
Chadwick that a delayed warrantless search of personal property immediately 
associated with the person of an arrestee at the time of arrest is justified by the 
“reduced expectations of privacy caused by the arrest.”  (Chadwick, supra, 433 
U.S. at p. 16, fn. 10.)  Contrary to the dissent‟s assertion, the rationale of these 
decisions — that a delayed search of an item of personal property found upon an 
arrestee‟s person no more imposes upon the arrestee‟s constitutionally protected 
privacy interest than does a search at the time and place of arrest — fully applies 
to the delayed search of defendant‟s cell phone.16 
                                              
16  
Not satisfied with the high court‟s explicit explanations, the dissent, citing 
just two of the 20 court of appeals decisions Edwards string-cited on the point (see 
Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at pp. 803-804, fn. 4), asserts that the high court‟s 
“rationale is to avoid logistically awkward or embarrassing public searches.”  (Dis. 
opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at p. 6.)  This assertion finds no support in the language 
of the high court‟s decisions, no doubt because making the validity of a delayed 
search turn on the logistics or potential embarrassment of a public search would, 
 
(Footnote continued on next page.) 
19 
 
For the reasons discussed above, we hold that, under the United States 
Supreme Court‟s binding precedent, the warrantless search of defendant‟s cell 
phone was valid.  If, as the dissent asserts, the wisdom of the high court‟s 
decisions “must be newly evaluated” in light of modern technology (dis. opn. of 
Werdegar, J., post, at p. 1), then that reevaluation must be undertaken by the high 
court itself. 17 
                                                                                                                                                              
(Footnote continued from previous page.) 
 
like the dissent‟s quantitative approach, require “the sort of ad hoc determinations 
on the part of officers in the field and reviewing courts” that the high court has 
condemned.  (Thornton v. U.S., supra, 541 U.S. at p. 623.) 
 
17  
Only a few published decisions exist regarding the validity of a warrantless 
search of a cell phone incident to a lawful custodial arrest.  Most are in accord 
with our conclusion.  (See, e.g., United States v. Murphy, supra, 552 F.3d at p. 412 
[citing Edwards in holding that “once [the defendant‟s] cell phone was held for 
evidence, other officers and investigators were entitled to conduct a further review 
of its contents . . . without seeking a warrant”]; United States v. Finley (5th Cir. 
2007) 477 F.3d 250, 260, fn. 7 [arrestee‟s cell phone “does not fit into 
[Chadwick‟s] category of „property not immediately associated with [his] person‟ 
because it was on his person at the time of his arrest”]; United States v. Wurie (D. 
Mass. 2009) 612 F.Supp.2d 104, 110 [upholding delayed search of cell phone, 
finding “no principled basis for distinguishing a warrantless search of a cell phone 
from the search of other types of personal containers found on a defendant‟s 
person that” have been upheld under Edwards].) 
 
In a closely divided (four to three) opinion, the Supreme Court of Ohio held 
otherwise, reasoning that “because a person has a high expectation of privacy in a 
cell phone‟s contents,” police, after seizing a cell phone from an arrestee‟s person, 
“must . . . obtain a warrant before intruding into the phone‟s contents.”  (State v. 
Smith (Ohio 2009) 920 N.E.2d 949, 955.)  The Ohio court‟s focus on the extent of 
the arrestee‟s expectation of privacy is, as previously explained, inconsistent with 
the high court‟s decisions. 
20 
DISPOSITION 
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CHIN, J. 
WE CONCUR: 
 
KENNARD, Acting C. J. 
BAXTER, J. 
CORRIGAN, J. 
GEORGE, J.* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
_____________________________ 
* Retired Chief Justice of California, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to 
article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.
1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONCURRING OPINION BY KENNARD, ACTING C. J. 
 
 
The majority holds that the police may, without obtaining a warrant, view 
or listen to information electronically stored on a mobile phone that a suspect was 
carrying when lawfully arrested.  The dissent disagrees.  I explain why I join the 
majority rather than the dissent. 
On June 8, 1982, California voters enacted an initiative measure known as 
Proposition 8.  Among other things, Proposition 8 added to the California 
Constitution a “Right to Truth-in-Evidence” provision (Cal. Const., art. 1, § 28, 
former subd. (d) [now subd. (f)(2)]).  That provision generally prohibits exclusion 
of relevant evidence in a criminal proceeding on the ground that the evidence was 
obtained unlawfully.  Because the federal Constitution is “the supreme law of the 
land” (U.S. Const., art. VI, § 2), and thus prevails over conflicting state 
constitutional provisions, the state Constitution‟s “Right to Truth-in-Evidence” 
provision does not apply when relevant evidence must be excluded because it was 
obtained in violation of the federal Constitution‟s Fourth Amendment, which 
prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.”  As a result, in California criminal 
proceedings all issues related to the suppression of evidence derived from police 
searches and seizures are now determined by application of federal constitutional 
law.  (People v. Lenart (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1107, 1118; People v. Sapp (2003) 31 
Cal.4th 240, 267; People v. Bradford (1997) 15 Cal.4th 1229, 1291.)  On issues of 
federal constitutional law, the decisions of the United States Supreme Court are 
2 
controlling.  (Gates v. Discovery Communications, Inc. (2004) 34 Cal.4th 679, 
692.) 
As the majority explains, three decisions of the United States Supreme 
Court compel the result in this case.  Those decisions are United States v. 
Robinson (1973) 414 U.S. 218 (Robinson), United States v. Edwards (1974) 415 
U.S. 800 (Edwards), and United States v. Chadwick (1977) 433 U.S. 1 
(Chadwick).  Under Robinson and Chadwick, a warrant is not required to conduct 
a “full search of the person” incident to a lawful arrest (Robinson, at p. 235), and 
the police may examine an object found during the search to determine whether it 
contains evidence of crime (id. at p. 236), so long as the object is one that is 
“immediately associated with the person of the arrestee” (Chadwick, at p. 15).  
Under Edwards, this search and inspection need not occur at the time and place of 
the arrest; it may occur even after “a substantial period of time has elapsed.”  
(Edwards, at p. 807.)   
When carried in clothing (rather than inside luggage or a similar container), 
a mobile phone is personal property that is “immediately associated with the 
person of the arrestee” (Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. 1, 15).  Accordingly, under 
controlling high court decisions, police may, without obtaining a warrant, inspect a 
mobile phone carried by a suspect at the time of arrest, by viewing or listening to 
its electronically stored data, including text messages, even when a substantial 
time has elapsed since the arrest. 
The dissent asserts that in light of the vast data storage capacity of “smart 
phones” and similar devices, the privacy interests that the federal Constitution‟s 
Fourth Amendment was intended to protect would be better served by a rule that 
did not allow police “to rummage at leisure through the wealth of personal and 
business information that can be carried on a mobile phone or handheld computer 
merely because the device was taken from an arrestee‟s person.”  (Dis. opn., post, 
3 
at pp. 12-13.)  The dissent also asserts that the three high court decisions I have 
mentioned are not binding here because they “were not made with mobile phones, 
smartphones and handheld computers — none of which existed at the time — in 
mind.”  (Dis. opn., post, at p. 9.)  In my view, however, the recent emergence of 
this new technology does not diminish or reduce in scope the binding force of high 
court precedents. 
I join the majority rather than the dissent because the United States 
Supreme Court has cautioned that on issues of federal law all courts must follow 
its directly applicable precedents, even when there are reasons to anticipate that it 
might reconsider, or create an exception to, a rule of law that it has established.  
(Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Exp. (1989) 490 U.S. 477, 484.)  The high 
court has reserved to itself alone “the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.”  
(Ibid.; see Scheiding v. General Motors Corp. (2000) 22 Cal.4th 471, 478.) 
Under the compulsion of directly applicable United States Supreme Court 
precedent, I join the majority in affirming the Court of Appeal‟s judgment. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
KENNARD, ACTING C. J. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DISSENTING OPINION BY WERDEGAR, J. 
 
 
I respectfully dissent.  The majority concludes police may search the data 
stored on an arrestee‟s mobile phone without a warrant, as they may search 
clothing (see United States v. Edwards (1974) 415 U.S. 800 (Edwards)) or small 
physical containers such as a crumpled cigarette package (see United States v. 
Robinson (1973) 414 U.S. 218 (Robinson)) taken from the person of an arrestee.  
In my view, electronic communication and data storage devices carried on the 
person — cellular phones, smartphones and handheld computers — are not 
sufficiently analogous to the clothing considered in Edwards or the crumpled 
cigarette package in Robinson to justify a blanket exception to the Fourth 
Amendment‟s warrant requirement.  A particular context-dependent balancing of 
constitutionally protected privacy interests against the police interests in safety and 
preservation of evidence led the United States Supreme Court, over 30 years ago, 
to hold searches of the arrestee‟s person reasonable despite the lack of probable 
cause or a warrant and despite substantial delay between the arrest and the search.  
(See United States v. Chadwick (1977) 433 U.S. 1, 14-15 (Chadwick).)  Today, in 
the very different context of mobile phones and related devices, that balance must 
be newly evaluated.1 
                                              
1  
The separately concurring justice correctly observes that we must follow 
directly applicable decisions from the United States Supreme Court even if we 
 
(Footnote continued on next page.) 
2 
The potential intrusion on informational privacy involved in a police search 
of a person‟s mobile phone, smartphone or handheld computer is unique among 
searches of an arrestee‟s person and effects.  A contemporary smartphone2 can 
hold hundreds or thousands of messages, photographs, videos, maps, contacts, 
financial records, memoranda and other documents, as well as records of the 
user‟s telephone calls and Web browsing.3  Never before has it been possible to 
                                                                                                                                                              
(Footnote continued from previous page.) 
 
think them due for reexamination.  (Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Exp. 
(1989) 490 U.S. 477, 484.)  But where high court precedent is not on all fours with 
the case at bar, we also must remember that the language of Supreme Court 
decisions is to “be read in the light of the facts of the case under discussion” and 
that “[g]eneral expressions transposed to other facts are often misleading.”  
(Armour & Co. v. Wantock (1944) 323 U.S. 126, 133.)  Indeed, the Supreme Court 
recently emphasized that stare decisis should not be used “to justify the 
continuance of an unconstitutional police practice. . . . in a case that is so easily 
distinguished from the decisions that arguably compel it.”  (Arizona v. Gant 
(2009) __ U.S. ___, ___ [173 L.Ed.2d 485, 499, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 1722].) 
 
The facts of the present case, as I will explain, differ in important respects 
from those that gave rise to the United States Supreme Court decisions in 
Robinson, Edwards and Chadwick.  These precedents, therefore, provide no basis 
for evading this court‟s independent responsibility to determine the 
constitutionality of the search at issue.  While we of course have no authority to 
overrule them, we may and should refrain from applying their language blindly to 
new and fundamentally different factual circumstances. 
2  
PCMag.com‟s online encyclopedia defines a smartphone as “[a] cellular 
telephone with built-in applications and Internet access.  Smartphones provide 
digital voice service as well as text messaging, e-mail, Web browsing, still and 
video cameras, MP3 player and video and TV viewing.  In addition to their built-
in functions, smartphones can run myriad applications, turning the once single-
minded cellphone into a mobile computer.”  
( [as of Jan. 3, 2011].)  
3  
Apple‟s iPhone 4, HTC‟s Droid Incredible, and the BlackBerry Torch all 
can store up to 32 gigabytes of data, which could include thousands of images or 
other digital files.  (See ; 
 
(Footnote continued on next page.) 
3 
carry so much personal or business information in one‟s pocket or purse.  The 
potential impairment to privacy if arrestees‟ mobile phones and handheld 
computers are treated like clothing or cigarette packages, fully searchable without 
probable cause or a warrant, is correspondingly great. 
Although the record does not disclose the type of mobile phone defendant 
possessed, I discuss smartphones as well as other mobile phones for two reasons.  
First, the rule adopted by the majority — that an electronic device carried on the 
person is for Fourth Amendment purposes indistinguishable from an individual‟s 
clothing or a small spatial container — is broad enough to encompass all types of 
handheld electronic data devices, including smartphones such as iPhones and 
BlackBerry devices, as well as other types of handheld computers.  While I 
disagree with the majority‟s holding on the validity of the search here, I agree that 
the permissibility of a search incident to arrest should not depend on the features 
or technical specifications of the mobile device, which could be difficult to 
determine at the time of arrest.4  Second, smartphones make up a growing share of 
the United States mobile phone market and are likely to be pervasive in the near 
future.  (See Gershowitz, The iPhone Meets the Fourth Amendment, supra, 56 
                                                                                                                                                              
(Footnote continued from previous page.) 
 
; and 
 
[all as of Jan. 3, 2011].)  On the capabilities of smartphones generally, see 
Gershowitz, The iPhone Meets the Fourth Amendment (2008) 56 UCLA L.Rev. 
27, 29-30. 
4  
But see Orso, Cellular Phones, Warrantless Searches, and the New 
Frontier of Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence (2010) 50 Santa Clara L.Rev. 183, 
222 (proposing to distinguish smartphones from “older generation cellular 
phones” by presence of a touch screen or full keyboard, and to impose stricter 
limits on searches of smartphones). 
4 
UCLA L.Rev. at p. 29 [“It does not take a crystal ball to predict that such devices 
will be ubiquitous in the United States within a few years.”].)5  The question of 
when and how they may be searched is therefore an important one.   
Warrantless searches incident to arrest are justified by the important 
interests in officer safety and preservation of evidence.  “When a custodial arrest is 
made, there is always some danger that the person arrested may seek to use a 
weapon, or that evidence may be concealed or destroyed.  To safeguard himself 
and others, and to prevent the loss of evidence, it has been held reasonable for the 
arresting officer to conduct a prompt, warrantless „search of the arrestee‟s person 
and the area “within his immediate control”—construing that phrase to mean the 
area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible 
evidence.‟ ”  (Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 14, quoting Chimel v. California 
(1969) 395 U.S. 752, 763.) 
Weapons, of course, may be hidden in an arrestee‟s clothing or in a 
physical container on the person.  But there is apparently no “app” that will turn an 
iPhone or any other mobile phone into an effective weapon for use against an 
arresting officer (and if there were, officers would presumably seek to disarm the 
phone rather than search its data files).  Clearly, any justification for the 
                                              
5  
In the third quarter of 2010 alone, for example, more than 20 million 
smartphones were reportedly sold in the United States, up from about 14.5 million 
in the second quarter of 2010 and 9.7 million in the same quarter of 2009.  (Bilton, 
The Race to Dominate the Smartphone Market, N.Y. Times Bits Blog (Nov. 1, 
2010)  [as of Jan. 3, 2011]; Hamblen, OS War Has Android on Top 
in U.S. Smartphone Sales (Aug. 12, 2010) Computerworld 
 [as of Jan. 3, 2011].) 
5 
warrantless search of a mobile phone must come from the possibility that the 
arrestee might, during the arrest, destroy evidence stored on the phone. 
Once a mobile phone has been seized from an arrestee and is under the 
exclusive control of the police, the arrestee, who is also in police custody, cannot 
destroy any evidence stored on it.6  At that point a search of its stored data would 
seem to require a warrant, for “when no exigency is shown to support the need for 
an immediate search, the Warrant Clause places the line at the point where the 
property to be searched comes under the exclusive dominion of police authority.”  
(Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 15.)  As the majority notes (maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 8, fn. 6), no evidence of exigency was presented in this case — no evidence that 
the text messages on defendant‟s phone were subject to imminent loss and could 
not, in any event, be obtained from defendant‟s cellular provider.7 
                                              
6  
Defendant did not challenge the seizure of his phone, only the search of the 
data stored on it.  Nor do I contend the police needed a warrant or probable cause 
to take defendant‟s phone from him and secure it.  Once secured, the phone could 
have been searched later if a warrant, founded on probable cause, issued for the 
search. 
7  
At oral argument, the Attorney General noted that data on some 
smartphones can be remotely wiped, which might allow an accomplice to destroy 
evidence on the phone even while the arrestee remains in custody and the phone in 
police control.  As an argument for warrantless searching, this proves too much.  
A suspect arrested in his or her home or office might also leave behind a computer 
with evidence that could be destroyed by an accomplice while the arrestee is in 
custody, but this possibility does not entitle police to search the contents of such 
computers without probable cause or a search warrant.  In either circumstance 
(home computer or handheld computer) an immediate search without waiting for a 
warrant might be desirable from the perspective of efficient policing, but “the 
mere fact that law enforcement may be made more efficient can never by itself 
justify disregard of the Fourth Amendment.”  (Mincey v. Arizona (1978) 437 U.S. 
385, 393.)  In any event, it appears that remote wiping can be avoided by 
removing the smartphone‟s battery and/or storing the phone in a shielded 
container, as law enforcement officers are being trained to do.  (See Grubb, 
Remote Wiping Thwarts Secret Service, ZDNet (Australian ed., May 18, 2010) 
 
(Footnote continued on next page.) 
6 
We are left, then, with the claim, accepted by the majority, that a mobile 
phone, like clothing and other items carried on the arrestee‟s person, may, under 
Edwards, be searched without a warrant even after the item has been secured and 
the suspect taken into custody, if it could have been searched at the time and place 
of arrest.  (See Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at pp. 803-804, 807-808.)  As to clothing 
and small physical containers, the law, in effect, indulges a fiction that an item that 
was on the arrestee‟s person when he was detained is still on his person — and 
thus vulnerable to destruction of evidence — notwithstanding that the arrestee is 
safely in custody and the item securely in police control.  (See New York v. Belton 
(1981) 453 U.S. 454, 466 (dis. opn. of Brennan, J.) [characterizing holding in 
Belton, which allowed a vehicle interior to be searched incident to arrest, as 
resting on “a fiction—that the interior of a car is always within the immediate 
control of an arrestee who has recently been in the car”]; Butterfoss, As Time Goes 
By:  The Elimination of Contemporaneity and Brevity as Factors in Search and 
Seizure Cases (1986) 21 Harv.C.R.-C.L. L.Rev. 603, 625 [broadly read, Edwards 
represented a “radical shift” in approach to the delayed-search problem, by which 
an exigency exception to the traditional contemporaneity rule displaced the rule 
itself].) 
Beyond observing that the defendant in Edwards “was no more imposed 
upon” than if his clothes had been taken from him earlier (Edwards, supra, 415 
U.S. at p. 805), the Edwards court did not explain its reasons for allowing delayed 
warrantless searches incident to arrest.  In particular, the high court did not explain 
                                                                                                                                                              
(Footnote continued from previous page.) 
 
 
[as of Jan. 3, 2011].) 
7 
what police interest justified a delayed warrantless search once the arrestee and his 
or her effects are safely in police control.  But court of appeals decisions cited by 
the high court (id. at pp. 803-804, fn. 4) suggest the rationale is to avoid 
logistically awkward or embarrassing public searches.  (See United States v. 
Gonzalez-Perez (5th Cir. 1970) 426 F.2d 1283, 1287 [“The arresting officers are 
not required to stand in a public place examining papers or other evidence on the 
person of the defendant in order for such evidence to be admissible.”]; United 
States v. DeLeo (1st Cir. 1970) 422 F.2d 487, 493 [“Were this not to be so, every 
person arrested for a serious crime would be subjected to thorough and possibly 
humiliating search where and when apprehended.”].)  This rationale makes sense 
as to an arrestee‟s actual person or clothing — the issue in Edwards — but its 
applicability to items that are easily removed from the arrestee‟s possession and 
secured by the police, such as mobile phones, is doubtful.  With such items the 
police choices are not limited to an awkward or cursory on-the-spot search or a 
thorough warrantless search at the station house.  Rather, the item can be taken 
from the arrestee and securely held until (assuming probable cause for a search 
exists) a warrant has issued.  (See United States v. Monclavo-Cruz (9th Cir. 1981) 
662 F.2d 1285, 1288 [delayed warrantless search of purse held unreasonable:  
“The fact that an officer is prevented from conducting a Chimel/Belton search, 
however, is not a sufficient reason to justify a search an hour later at the station. 
The protective rationale for the search no longer applies.”].) 
Recently, addressing the search of an arrestee‟s vehicle, the high court 
rejected the fictional approach to justification of a search incident to arrest, 
holding instead “that the Chimel rationale authorizes police to search a vehicle 
incident to a recent occupant‟s arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured and 
within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search.”  
(Arizona v. Gant, supra, __ U.S. at p.  ___ [173 L.Ed.2d at p. 496, 129 S.Ct. at 
8 
p. 1719].)  Just as the court in Gant adopted a narrow reading of New York v. 
Belton, supra, 453 U.S. 454, so, too, some courts and commentators have 
suggested a narrow reading of Edwards, in which delayed searches incident to 
arrest would be per se valid only as to the arrestee‟s actual person or clothing 
(which cannot easily be separated from the person at the time of arrest).  (See 
United States v. Schleis (8th Cir. 1978) 582 F.2d 1166, 1171 [disapproving station 
house search of arrestee‟s locked briefcase]; Butterfoss, As Time Goes By:  The 
Elimination of Contemporaneity and Brevity as Factors in Search and Seizure 
Cases, supra, 21 Harv.C.R.-C.L. L.Rev. at p. 626 [noting possibility of reading 
Edwards as dependent on impossibility of taking arrestee‟s clothes until 
replacement clothes were available at the jail].)  Indeed, the defendant in Edwards 
had objected, and the court of appeals had reversed his conviction, only on 
grounds that the delayed warrantless seizure of his clothing violated the Fourth 
Amendment to the United States Constitution.  (Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at 
p. 802, italics added.)  No issue was presented as to the delayed warrantless 
seizure or search of a container carried by an arrestee. 
Edwards nonetheless spoke broadly, and Chadwick suggests items beyond 
clothing may be subject to delayed warrantless search if they are “immediately 
associated with the person of the arrestee.”  (Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 15; 
see also id. at p. 16, fn. 10 [describing Robinson (which involved search of a small 
container), as well as Edwards, as a search “of the person”].)  The majority thus 
reasonably reads existing high court authority as permitting delayed warrantless 
searches of containers immediately associated with an arrestee‟s person. 
The question is whether the information stored on electronic devices such 
as mobile phones, as at issue here, may be examined without a warrant under the 
same rationale.  For two reasons, I would hold it may not. 
9 
First, as suggested earlier, the amount and type of personal and business 
information that can be stored on a mobile phone, smartphone or handheld 
computer, and would become subject to delayed warrantless search under the 
majority holding, dwarfs that which can be carried on the person in a spatial 
container.8  As one federal district court observed in suppressing the fruits of a 
mobile phone search, “modern cellular phones have the capacity for storing 
immense amounts of private information.  Unlike pagers or address books, modern 
cell phones record incoming and outgoing calls, and can also contain address 
books, calendars, voice and text messages, email, video and pictures.  Individuals 
can store highly personal information on their cell phones, and can record their 
most private thoughts and conversations on their cell phones through email and 
text, voice and instant messages.”  (United States v. Park (N.D.Cal., May 23, 
2007, No. CR 05-375 SI) 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 40596, *21-*22, fn. omitted.)  
Smartphones, as we have seen, have even greater information storage capacities.   
The United States Supreme Court‟s holdings on clothing and small spatial 
containers were not made with mobile phones, smartphones and handheld 
computers — none of which existed at the time — in mind.  Electronic devices 
“contain” information in a manner very different from the way the crumpled 
cigarette package in Robinson contained capsules of heroin.  (See Robinson, 
supra, 414 U.S. at p. 223.)  Electronic devices, indeed, are not even “containers” 
within the meaning of the high court‟s search decisions.  As the Ohio Supreme 
                                              
8  
The majority observes that substantial private information can be carried in 
the nondigital forms of letters and diaries.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 12.)  Implicit in 
the majority‟s argument is the assumption that police may not only take a letter or 
diary from an arrestee and inventory it, but may, without a warrant, read through 
all of its contents.  Neither this court nor the United States Supreme Court has so 
held. 
10 
Court, rejecting application of the container cases to a mobile phone, noted, 
“[o]bjects falling under the banner of „closed container‟ have traditionally been 
physical objects capable of holding other physical objects.  Indeed, the United 
States Supreme Court has stated that in this situation, „container‟ means „any 
object capable of holding another object.‟ ”  (State v. Smith (Ohio 2009) 920 
N.E.2d 949, 954, quoting New York v. Belton, supra, 453 U.S. at p. 460, fn. 4.)9 
Second, the grounds for deeming an arrestee to have lost privacy rights in 
his or her person do not apply to the privacy interest in data stored on electronic 
devices.  In Robinson, the Supreme Court, quoting with approval from a New 
York case, explained that while warrantless searches of the person are ordinarily 
unlawful, “ „[s]earch of the person becomes lawful when grounds for arrest and 
accusation have been discovered, and the law is in the act of subjecting the body of 
the accused to its physical dominion.‟ ”  (Robinson, supra, 414 U.S. at p. 232, 
italics added.)  In Edwards, the court reasoned that where the state has lawfully 
taken a person into custody, though not all his privacy interests are destroyed, the 
                                              
9  
The Belton court stated:  “ „Container‟ here denotes any object capable of 
holding another object.  It thus includes closed or open glove compartments, 
consoles, or other receptacles located anywhere within the passenger 
compartment, as well as luggage, boxes, bags, clothing, and the like.”  (New York 
v. Belton, supra, 453 U.S. at pp. 460-461, fn. 4.)  As Belton clearly spoke only of 
objects physically containing other objects, the majority‟s reliance on that case for 
the proposition that any “container,” whatever the extent of the arrestee‟s 
expectation of privacy in it, may be searched incident to arrest (maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 11) is misplaced when it comes to mobile phones and other electronic 
communication and data storage devices.  Still less on point is United States v. 
Ross (1982) 456 U.S. 798, which did not even involve a search incident to arrest.  
That the high court in Ross declined to distinguish among probable cause searches 
of “paper bags, locked trunks, lunch buckets, and orange crates” carried in 
automobiles (id. at p. 822) hardly requires that an arrestee‟s mobile phone, 
smartphone or handheld computer be treated the same as clothing or a crumpled 
cigarette package.   
11 
arrest “ „does—for at least a reasonable time and to a reasonable extent—take his 
own privacy out of the realm of protection from police interest in weapons, means 
of escape, and evidence.‟ ”  (Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at pp. 808-809, italics 
added.)  Citing Robinson and Edwards, the court subsequently distinguished 
“searches of the person,” in which the arrest created a “reduced expectation[] of 
privacy,” from searches of the possessions within an arrestee‟s control.  
(Chadwick, supra, 433 U.S. at p. 16, fn. 10.) 
The warrantless search of an arrestee‟s person thus rests on a relatively 
simple, intuitively correct idea:  the police, having lawful custody of the 
individual, necessarily have the authority to search the arrestee‟s body and seize 
anything of importance they find there.  Having been lawfully arrested, with his or 
her person under the custody and control of the police, the individual can no 
longer claim in full the personal privacy he or she ordinarily enjoys.  It does not 
follow, however, that the police also have “ „dominion‟ ” (Robinson, supra, 414 
U.S. at p. 232) over the entirety of stored messages, photographs, videos, 
memoranda and other records an arrestee may be carrying on a mobile phone or 
smartphone.  An individual lawfully arrested and taken into police custody 
necessarily loses much of his or her bodily privacy, but does not necessarily suffer 
a reduction in the informational privacy that protects the arrestee‟s records.  That 
an arrestee‟s interest in his or her “ „own privacy‟ ” (Edwards, supra, 415 U.S. at 
p. 809) is severely reduced does not imply a corresponding reduction in privacy of 
personal and business data.  Even when they happen to be stored on a device 
carried on the person, these records are clearly distinct from the person of the 
arrestee. 
Because the data stored on a mobile phone or other electronic device is 
easily distinguished from the arrestee‟s actual person, and in light of the 
extraordinary potential for invasion of informational privacy involved in searching 
12 
data stored on such devices, I would hold mobile phones, smartphones and 
handheld computers are not ordinarily subject to delayed, warrantless search 
incident to arrest.  In the terms provided by the existing United States Supreme 
Court authority, search of the information stored on an arrestee‟s mobile phone or 
similar device should be treated as the search of an item “within an arrestee‟s 
immediate control” rather than a search “of the person.”  (Chadwick, supra, 433 
U.S. at p. 16, fn. 10.)  Once an arrestee‟s mobile phone or similar device is 
securely “under the exclusive dominion of police authority” (id. at p. 15), the 
arrest itself no longer serves to authorize a warrantless search of its stored data. 
This is not to say police may never examine or search an arrestee‟s mobile 
phone without a warrant.  Devices carried on the arrestee‟s person may be seized 
and secured.  Some examination of the device, not amounting to a search of its 
data folders, might also be reasonable.  (See, e.g., U.S. v. Wurie (D.Mass. 2009) 
612 F.Supp.2d 104, 106-107 [when arrestee‟s mobile phone rang, officer flipped it 
open and observed originating number and “wallpaper” photograph, which led to 
discovery of arrestee‟s residence address].)  And where the arresting officers have 
reason to fear imminent loss of evidence from the device, or some other exigency 
makes immediate retrieval of information advisable, warrantless examination and 
search of the device would be justified.  (See, e.g., United States v. Lottie 
(N.D.Ind., Jan. 14, 2008, No. 3:07cr51RM) 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis 2864, *9 
[officers had reason to believe that accomplices in large drug transaction, 
“unknown but potentially present and armed,” were conducting 
countersurveillance of the police operation, raising concern for safety of officers 
and the public].) 
The majority‟s holding, however, goes much further, apparently allowing 
police carte blanche, with no showing of exigency, to rummage at leisure through  
13 
 
the wealth of personal and business information that can be carried on a mobile 
phone or handheld computer merely because the device was taken from an 
arrestee‟s person.  The majority thus sanctions a highly intrusive and unjustified 
type of search, one meeting neither the warrant requirement nor the reasonableness 
requirement of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  As a 
commentator has noted, “[i]f courts adopted this rule, it would subject anyone who 
is the subject of a custodial arrest, even for a traffic violation, to a preapproved 
foray into a virtual warehouse of their most intimate communications and 
photographs without probable cause.”  (Orso, Cellular Phones, Warrantless 
Searches, and the New Frontier of Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence, supra, 50 
Santa Clara L.Rev. at p. 211.)  United States Supreme Court authority does not 
compel this overly permissive rule, and I cannot agree to its adoption. 
 
 
 
 
 
WERDEGAR, J. 
I CONCUR: 
MORENO, J. 
 
1 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion People v. Diaz 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding 
Review Granted XXX 165 Cal.App.4th 732 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S166600 
Date Filed: January 3, 2011 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: Superior 
County: Ventura 
Judge: Kevin J. McGee 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Counsel: 
 
Lyn A. Woodward, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant. 
 
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. 
Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Donald E. DeNicola, Deputy State Solicitor General, Lawrence M. 
Daniels, Paul M. Roadarmel, Jr., and Victoria B. Wilson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and 
Respondent. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Lyn A. Woodward 
P.O. Box 51545 
Pacific Grove, CA  93950 
(831) 375-1191 
 
Victoria B. Wilson 
Deputy Attorney General 
300 South Spring Street, Suite 1702 
Los Angeles, CA  90013 
(213) 897-2357