Gen. 61] 61

WIRETAP AND ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE

COURTS AND JUDGES – JURISDICTION AND PROCEDURE –

CELLPHONE WARRANTS

August 30, 2016

The Honorable Matthew A. Maciarello

State’s Attorney for Wicomico County

You have asked whether a judge of the Maryland District 

Court may sign search warrants or other similar court orders 

involving cellphones, or whether such warrants or orders may only 

be signed by a circuit court judge. The answer to your question 

depends on the type of search or other request for information that 

is at issue. Five different types of warrants or court orders might 

involve cellphones, each governed by its own statute: (1) a wiretap 

under § 10-406 of the Courts & Judicial Proceedings (“CJP”) 

Article; (2) a pen register or trap and trace device under CJP § 10-

4B-04; (3) a request for stored information from a 

telecommunications provider under CJP § 10-4A-04; (4) the live 

tracking of a cellphone’s location under § 1-203.1 of the Criminal 

Procedure (“CP”) Article; and (5) the physical search of an actual 

phone under the general warrant statute in CP § 1-203. As 

explained further below, a warrant or court order under the first 

three statutes must be signed by a circuit court judge, but a warrant 

or order under the last two statutes may be signed by either a circuit 

court judge or a district court judge.

I

Background

For as long as we have been using wires to transmit oral 

communications, people have been devising ways to intercept 

those communications. Although the earliest efforts at wiretapping 

appear to have been forms of corporate espionage, law enforcement 

officials first began using wiretaps as a crime-fighting tool in the 

1890s. See Howard J. Kaplan, et al., The History and Law of 

Wiretapping, ABA Section of Litigation, 2012 Section Annual 

Conference, at 2-3 (April 18-20, 2012); William Lee Adams, 

“Brief History: Wiretapping,” Time (Oct. 11, 2010). The Supreme 

Court did not address the constitutionality of wiretapping until 

1928, when it held that a wiretap was not a search under the Fourth 

Amendment. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 464-65 

(1928).
62 [101 Op. Att’y

Six years after Olmstead, Congress enacted the 

Communications Act of 1934, which made it unlawful for any 

“person” to “intercept” and “divulge or publish” the contents of any 

wire or radio communication without the authorization of the 

sender. Pub. L. 73-426, Title VI, § 605, 48 Stat. 1103 (June 19, 

1934), codified at 47 U.S.C. § 605. Soon thereafter, the Supreme 

Court held that the statute, because it applied to any “person” 

without exception, prohibited the use of wiretaps by law 

enforcement personnel, and rendered inadmissible in federal court 

any evidence obtained as a result of a wiretap. Nardone v. United 

States, 302 U.S. 379, 382-83 (1937); see also Nardone v. United 

States, 308 U.S. 338, 340-41 (1939).

Despite the prohibition on wiretapping in the Communications Act, many law enforcement officers continued to conduct 

wiretaps, though it remained a “somewhat stigmatized” 

investigative technique. Kaplan at 3; see also, e.g., Congressional 

Wiretapping Policy Overdue, 2 Stan. L. Rev. 744, 748-50 (1950)

(explaining that wiretapping was common at the time and that the 

U.S. Attorney General had interpreted the Communications Act to 

prohibit only the divulging of information gleaned from the 

wiretap, not the wiretapping itself). Then, by the 1950s and 1960s, 

public attitudes became more accepting of the practice, in part 

because the government found itself “struggling to enforce laws 

against organized crime, drug trafficking, and other highly 

dangerous criminal activities.” Kaplan at 3. Some states thus 

began experimenting with their own wiretap statutes. Maryland, 

for example, enacted a law in 1956 that authorized law enforcement 

personnel to conduct wiretaps only if they received the functional 

equivalent of a warrant based on probable cause from a circuit court 

judge. 1956 Md. Laws, ch. 116, codified at Md. Ann. Code, art. 35 

§§ 100-107 (1951, 1956 Cum. Supp.); see also Manger v. State, 

214 Md. 71, 75 (1957) (discussing the enactment of the Maryland 

law); 53 Opinions of the Attorney General 456, 458-59 (1968). 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court revisited Olmstead and 

effectively overruled its holding that a wiretap is not a search 

within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See Berger v. New 

York, 388 U.S. 41, 51 (1967); Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 

353 (1967). In Berger, the Court invalidated New York’s wiretap 

statute, which had authorized wiretapping pursuant to a state court 

order, but identified circumstances under which such a statute 

would be constitutional. Berger, 388 U.S. at 54-63. Using Berger

as a guide, Congress passed Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control 

and Safe Streets Act, which, as amended, continues to govern 

wiretaps today. See Pub. L. 90-351, Title III, 82 Stat. 211 (June 19, 
Gen. 61] 63

1968), codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510 to 2520. Although Title III 

generally made it a crime to intercept any oral or wire 

communications or to divulge the contents of an intercepted 

communication, 18 U.S.C. § 2511 (1968), the statute for the first 

time explicitly authorized law enforcement personnel to intercept 

oral and wire communications in connection with investigations 

into a limited number of serious crimes so long as the government 

complied with certain requirements, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2516, 2517 

(1968). 

Specifically, Title III required that a federal prosecutor 

seeking a wiretap had to obtain an order from a federal “judge of 

competent jurisdiction,” 18 U.S.C. § 2516(1) (1968), which the 

statute defined as a judge of a United States district court or court 

of appeals, 18 U.S.C. § 2510(9)(a) (1968). State prosecutors, if 

permitted by state law, similarly could obtain an order from a state 

court “judge of competent jurisdiction,” 18 U.S.C. § 2516(2) 

(1968), defined as “a judge of any court of general criminal 

jurisdiction of a State who is authorized by a statute of that State to 

enter orders authorizing interceptions of wire or oral 

communications,” 18 U.S.C. § 2510(9)(b) (1968). Title III also 

provided that, before a federal or state court judge could authorize 

a wiretap, the law enforcement agency making the request had to 

demonstrate probable cause and satisfy other procedural and 

substantive requirements that were stricter than those for obtaining 

a warrant. See 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (1968). In essence, Title III 

established a “uniform minimum national standard governing the 

interception and use of [wire or oral] communications.” Ricks v. 

State, 312 Md. 11, 13 (1988). Thus, while state laws authorizing 

wiretaps could be more protective of privacy, they at least had to 

meet the federal standards in Title III. Id. at 14.

To conform to the new federal standards, Maryland repealed 

its 1956 wiretap statute and adopted the Maryland Wiretap and 

Electronic Surveillance Act (the “Maryland Wiretap Act”). See

1977 Md. Laws, ch. 692, now codified at CJP §§ 10-401 to 10-414. 

The Maryland Wiretap Act “was modeled upon and closely 

tracked” Title III of the federal law, “although in some particulars 

[the state law] was more restrictive.” Ricks, 312 Md. at 15; see also

85 Opinions of the Attorney General 225 (2000). The Maryland 

statute—like the federal law—required law enforcement personnel 

to obtain an order from a “judge of competent jurisdiction,” which 

it defined as “a judge of a circuit court or the Supreme Bench of 

Baltimore City.” 1977 Md. Laws, ch. 692, § 3, now codified at 

CJP §§ 10-401(12), 10-406(a).
64 [101 Op. Att’y

In the 1980s, the federal government and the states revisited 

the issue of communication privacy in light of the increasing use of 

computers and other emerging technologies. In response to these 

new challenges, Congress enacted a series of reforms as part of the 

Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Pub. L. 99-508, 

100 Stat. 1848 (Oct. 21, 1986). First, Congress updated Title III of 

the Crime Control and Safe Streets Act by prohibiting anyone from 

intercepting “electronic communications” without a valid court 

order that met the same heightened standards as those for the 

interception of wire and oral communications. Id. (Title I). 

Second, Congress added the Stored Wire and Electronic 

Communications and Transactional Records Access Act. Id., 100 

Stat. 1860 (Title II), codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701 to 2710 (“Stored 

Communications Act”). This new legislation covered two separate 

types of information: (1) the contents of communications stored in 

the service provider’s electronic storage system; and (2) noncontent records pertaining to subscribers. See 18 U.S.C. § 2703 

(1986). The statute required service providers to disclose both 

types of information to a state or federal governmental entity if the 

government complied with certain requirements laid out in the 

statute, though the requirements varied with the type of information 

sought. Id. With respect to the contents of stored communications, 

law enforcement personnel were generally required to obtain a 

warrant under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or an 

“equivalent State warrant.” 18 U.S.C. § 2703(a) (1986). For noncontent information, however, the government could require the 

service provider to disclose the information based on a subpoena 

or a special court order based on less than probable cause. 18 

U.S.C. § 2703(c), (d) (1986) (government must show that there is 

“reason to believe” that the information is “relevant to a legitimate 

law enforcement inquiry”).

Third, Congress enacted new provisions governing pen 

registers and trap and trace devices.1 Pub. L. 99-508, 100 Stat. 

1868 (Title III), codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 3121 to 3126. These 

provisions required law enforcement personnel to obtain an order 

based on less than probable cause from a “court of competent 

jurisdiction,” 18 U.S.C. §§ 3122, 3123 (1986), and defined “court 

of competent jurisdiction” to mean either (1) “a district court of the 

United States (including a magistrate of such a court) or a United 

States Court of Appeals,” or (2) “a court of general criminal 

 

1 A pen register is an electronic device that records every outgoing

phone number called from a particular telephone line in real time, while 

a trap and trace device records every incoming number that dials a 

particular phone. See 18 U.S.C. § 3126(3), (4) (1986).
Gen. 61] 65

jurisdiction of a State authorized by the law of that State to enter 

orders authorizing the use of a pen register or a trap and trace 

device,” 18 U.S.C. § 3126(2) (1986). Congress gave the states two 

years to amend their wiretap and pen register statutes to meet the 

new federal minimum standards under Title I and Title III of the 

1986 Act. Pub. L. 99-508, Title I, § 111; Title III, § 302.

In 1988, the General Assembly enacted legislation intended 

largely to bring Maryland into compliance with the new federal 

law. See 1988 Md. Laws, ch. 607. In a single piece of legislation, 

the Legislature amended the Maryland Wiretap Act to cover 

“electronic” communications, added a new subtitle governing 

access to the stored communications and transactional records of 

service providers, id. (codified at CJP Title 10, Subt. 3A), and 

added a second new subtitle governing pen registers and trap and 

trace devices, id. (codified at CJP Title 10, Subt. 3B). The new 

Maryland laws were again modeled closely on federal law, 

sometimes using the same language of the federal act. See id.; 75 

Opinions of the Attorney General 382, 384-85 (1990). We will 

discuss the requirements of these Maryland laws in more detail 

below.

Finally, in more recent years, further technological 

advances—particularly those involving cellphones—have raised 

new questions about access to, and the privacy of, wire and 

electronic communications. The Supreme Court resolved one such 

question in Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (2014), holding that 

the police must generally secure a warrant before searching the 

digital data on a cellphone seized from an arrestee. Other questions 

remain, however, including whether the government needs a 

warrant to track a person’s location using information obtained 

from his or her cellphone. See generally, e.g., R. Craig Curtis, et 

al., Using Technology the Founders Never Dreamed of: Cell 

Phones As Tracking Devices and the Fourth Amendment, 4 U. 

Denv. Crim. L. Rev. 61 (2014). Some lower courts have drawn a 

distinction between historical location information obtained afterthe-fact from a service provider and prospective information that 

allows the police to track cellphone location in real time, 

concluding that the latter requires a warrant but the former requires 

only an order under the Stored Communications Act. See United 

States v. Jones, 908 F. Supp. 2d 203, 208-09 nn. 5 & 6 (D.D.C. 2012) 

(collecting cases); see also, e.g., United States v. Graham, 824 F.3d 

421, 426-27 (4th Cir. 2016) (en banc) (holding that the Fourth 

Amendment does not require police to obtain a warrant for 
66 [101 Op. Att’y

historical cell location information but suggesting that the opposite 

may be true for prospective location information). 

Maryland law specifically addresses the availability of 

prospective location information. In 2014, the General Assembly 

enacted a statute under which a court may issue an order permitting 

law enforcement personnel to obtain real time “location 

information from an electronic device” if there is “probable cause 

to believe” that a crime “has been, is being, or will be committed 

by” the user of the device and the location information will lead to 

evidence of the crime or an arrest on an active warrant. See 2014 

Md. Laws, ch. 191, codified at CP § 1-203.1(b)(1). In addition, the 

Court of Special Appeals recently held that tracking a cellphone’s 

location in real time using a cell-site simulator is a search under the 

Fourth Amendment and requires a warrant based on probable 

cause. State v. Andrews, 227 Md. App. 350, 395 (2016).2 With 

this background in mind, we turn to your question. 

II

Analysis

You have asked whether a judge of the Maryland District 

Court may sign warrants or other similar court orders involving 

cellphones. As described above, no single statute governs the 

respective authority of district court and circuit court judges over 

cellphone warrants. Instead, the answer to your question depends 

on the type of search or request for information at issue and the 

specific statutory provision under which the warrant or court order 

is authorized. 

A. The Maryland Wiretap Act

The first type of order authorizing a search that might involve 

a cellphone is a wiretap order under the Maryland Wiretap Act. See

CJP §§ 10-401 to 10-414. Generally speaking, under the Wiretap 

Act “it is unlawful for any person to . . . [w]illfully intercept, 

endeavor to intercept, or procure any other person to intercept or 

endeavor to intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic 

 

2 Because Andrews involved the use of a cell-site simulator—a 

device that forces a suspect’s cell phone to transmit signals and thus 

enables the police, on their own, to track the suspect—the court did not 

decide whether the government needs a warrant to obtain location 

information from a service provider. 227 Md. App. at 358 n.3. The court 

also did not decide whether the new type of court order provided for 

under CP § 1-203.1 for the real-time tracking of cellphones would suffice 

to meet the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. Id. at 408.
Gen. 61] 67

communication.” CJP § 10-402(a)(1). However, a “judge of 

competent jurisdiction” may “grant an order authorizing the 

interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications by 

investigative or law enforcement officers” when there is probable 

cause to believe that the interception will yield evidence of one of 

a series of specified crimes. CJP § 10-406(a); see also CJP § 10-

408 (outlining the probable cause requirement and other 

requirements for wiretap orders). The statute specifically defines a 

“judge of competent jurisdiction” as a “judge of any circuit court

within the State having jurisdiction over the offense under 

investigation.” CJP § 10-401(12) (emphasis added). Thus, a 

wiretap order may be issued only by a circuit court judge. 

In fact, allowing a district court judge to issue such an order 

would likely conflict with federal law. As explained above, the 

federal counterpart to Maryland’s wiretap statute prohibits the 

intercept of a telephone communication without authorization from 

either a federal judge or “a State court judge of competent 

jurisdiction.” 18 U.S.C. § 2516(2); see also 18 U.S.C. § 2511. The 

federal statute in turn defines “judge of competent jurisdiction” to 

mean “a judge of any court of general criminal jurisdiction of a 

State who is authorized by a statute of that State to enter orders 

authorizing interceptions of wire, oral, or electronic 

communications.” 18 U.S.C. § 2510(9)(b) (emphasis added). 

Because the Maryland District Court is a court of “limited 

jurisdiction,” not of general jurisdiction, CJP § 1-601, the federal 

statute effectively prevents Maryland from authorizing a district 

court judge to grant wiretap orders.

B. Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices

A second type of order potentially involving cellphones is an 

order under Maryland’s statute governing pen registers and trap 

and trace devices. See CJP §§ 10-4B-01 to 10-4B-05. Although 

State law generally makes it a crime to use a pen register, CJP 

§ 10-4B-02(a), a law enforcement officer may apply to “a court of 

competent jurisdiction” for an order authorizing a pen register. CJP 

§ 10-4B-03(a). The court may issue such an order if it “finds that 

the information likely to be obtained by the installation and use is 

relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.” CJP § 10-4B-04(a). 

Under the plain terms of this statute, “court of competent 

jurisdiction” means “any circuit court having jurisdiction over the 

crime being investigated regardless of the location of the 

instrument or process from which a wire or electronic 
68 [101 Op. Att’y

communication is transmitted or received.” CJP § 10-4B-01(b) 

(emphasis added). As with the Wiretap Act, this definition was

likely informed by federal law, under which a pen register or trap 

and trace device may only be authorized by “a court of general 

criminal jurisdiction of a State authorized by the law of that State 

to enter orders authorizing the use of a pen register or a trap and 

trace device.” 18 U.S.C. § 3127(2)(B). Thus, a court order issued 

under subtitle 4B must be issued by a circuit court judge. 

C. Stored Communications and Transactional Records

A different statute governs transactional records and historical 

information stored by a service provider in that provider’s 

electronic storage system. See CJP §§ 10-4A-01 to 10-4A-08. If 

the stored information will reveal the content of a communication,

law enforcement officials may compel the service provider to 

disclose that content “only in accordance with a search warrant 

issued by a court of competent jurisdiction.” CJP § 10-4A-04(a). 

Alternatively, if the information will not reveal any content, the 

police do not need a search warrant based on probable cause. 

Instead, a “court of competent jurisdiction” may “issue an order 

requiring disclosure” of that non-content information “if the 

investigative or law enforcement officer shows that there is reason 

to believe the records or other information sought are relevant to a 

legitimate law enforcement inquiry.” CJP § 10-4A-04(c). 

Thus, as under subtitle 4B governing pen registers and trap 

and trace devices, a warrant or court order seeking stored 

communications under subtitle 4A must be signed by a “court of 

competent jurisdiction.” Unlike subtitle 4B, however, subtitle 4A 

does not explicitly define that term. Although a “judge of 

competent jurisdiction” in subtitle 4A has the same meaning as 

under the Maryland Wiretap Act, CJP § 10-4A-01(b)(12) 

(emphasis added)—namely, “a judge of any circuit court within the 

State having jurisdiction over the offense under investigation,” CJP 

§ 10-401(12)—the operative provisions of subtitle 4A never 

actually use the term “judge of competent jurisdiction.” 

Despite this ambiguity, we conclude that a court of competent 

jurisdiction under Maryland’s stored communications statute 

means a circuit court. The General Assembly enacted this statute 

in subtitle 4A at the same time and as part of the same piece of 

legislation as the pen register statute in subtitle 4B, which expressly 

defined “court of competent jurisdiction” to mean “a circuit court.” 

1988 Md. Laws, ch. 607, codified at CJP § 10-4B-01(c) (1984 

Repl. Vol, 1988 Supp.). When, as here, a provision is part of a 

larger statutory scheme, “the legislative intention must be gathered 
Gen. 61] 69

from the entire statute, rather than from only one part.” Bridges v. 

Nicely, 304 Md. 1, 10 (1985). Thus, courts generally presume that 

a term used in one part of a statute has the same meaning when 

used elsewhere in the same statute. See, e.g., Lockett v. Blue Ocean 

Bristol, 446 Md. 397, 422 (2016); Baltimore & Annap. R. Co. v. 

Lichtenberg, 176 Md. 383, 391-92 (1939); Edmonds v. Cytology 

Servs. of Md., Inc., 111 Md. App. 233, 251 n.19 (1996), aff’d sub 

nom. Rivera v. Edmonds, 347 Md. 208 (1997); cf. Whack v. State, 

338 Md. 665, 673 (1995) (noting that the presumption may be 

overcome if “apparent” that the Legislature intended the words to 

have different meanings). Applying that longstanding rule here, 

we conclude that the General Assembly likely intended the term 

“court of competent jurisdiction” in subtitle 4A to have the same 

meaning as in subtitle 4B: a circuit court.3 

We recognize that the interpretive rule we apply here has its 

limits, and that the use of different terms in different parts of a 

statutory scheme usually indicates that the terms should have 

different meanings, see, e.g., Toler v. Motor Vehicle Admin., 373 

Md. 214, 223 (2003), but here the use of “judge” rather than “court” 

in § 10-4A-01 appears to have been a historical accident. The 

federal laws on which the General Assembly closely modeled its 

own legislation happened to use “judge of competent jurisdiction” 

in the wiretap act, 18 U.S.C. § 2516(2), and “court of competent 

jurisdiction” in the pen register statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3122(a)(2), and 

these two terms seem to have been carried over into the analogous 

Maryland laws. There is no evidence that Congress intended those 

two terms to have different meanings. To the contrary, in both 

contexts Congress granted authority to issue orders only to State 

courts of “general criminal jurisdiction.” 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510(9)(b), 

3127(2)(b). We thus see no indication that the General Assembly 

intended to ascribe different meaning to those terms by 

incorporating them into the analogous Maryland laws.

Furthermore, as discussed above with respect to the Maryland 

Wiretap Act and the pen register statute, allowing a district court 

 

3 The pen register statute in subtitle 4B has since been amended to 

define “court of competent jurisdiction” as “any circuit court having 

jurisdiction over the crime being investigated regardless of the location 

of the instrument or process from which a wire or electronic 

communication is transmitted or received.” CJP § 10-4B-01(b). We 

express no opinion on whether the new aspects of that definition should 

also be read into the definition of “court of competent jurisdiction” in 

subtitle 4A. 
70 [101 Op. Att’y

judge to sign a warrant or order under subtitle 4A would likely 

conflict with federal law. Under the analogous federal Stored 

Communications Act, the government may only require a 

communications provider to turn over stored communications or 

records with a warrant or court order from “a court of general 

criminal jurisdiction of a State.”4 18 U.S.C. § 2711(3)(B) 

(emphasis added); see also 18 U.S.C. § 2703. Because the 

Maryland District Court is not a court of general criminal 

jurisdiction, the definition of court of competent jurisdiction in 

subtitle 4A should be read to exclude district court judges.5 In our 

view, therefore, only a circuit court judge may sign a warrant or 

court order under CJP § 10-4A-04. 

D. Live-Tracking of Phone Location 

As noted above, in 2014, the General Assembly enacted a 

statute authorizing law enforcement personnel to track a cellphone 

user’s location in real time. See 2014 Md. Laws, ch. 191 (codified 

at CP § 1-203.1). Under the statute, the police must obtain an order 

from a “court,” CP § 1-203.1(b)(1), and “court” is defined to 

include “the District Court or a circuit court having jurisdiction 

over the crime being investigated.” CP § 1-203.1(a)(2) (emphasis 

added). An order under this section thus may signed by a judge of 

the District Court. 

However, this new statute’s grant of power to the District 

Court does not mean that a district court judge may now sign any 

and all orders involving cellphones. The other statutes discussed 

 

4 Whether a warrant or some type of lesser court order is required 

depends on the type of information at issue. A warrant is usually 

required for content information, but a lesser court order will suffice for 

non-content records. See 18 U.S.C. § 2703(a), (b)(1)(A), (d). 

5 As originally enacted, the federal Stored Communications Act did 

not expressly require the warrant or order to be issued by a “court of 

competent jurisdiction.” The statute instead required a “warrant issued 

under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or equivalent State 

warrant” in some circumstances and, in other circumstances, a “court 

order for disclosure” from an unspecified court. Pub. L. 99-508, 100 

Stat. 1862, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2703(a), (d) (1986). But Congress 

later amended the statute to clarify that a state court warrant or order had 

to be from “court of general criminal jurisdiction.” Pub. L. 100-690, 

Title VII, §§ 7039, 102 Stat. 4399 (Nov. 18, 1988); Pub. L. 111-79, 123 

Stat. 2086 (Oct. 19, 2009). Given that the General Assembly saw no 

need to amend its own law to bring it into compliance with the new 

federal language, the Legislature presumably thought that the authority 

to grant such orders in Maryland was already limited to the circuit court. 
Gen. 61] 71

above define “court” differently, and there is no requirement that 

the term be defined the same way in every statute. It also makes 

sense that the General Assembly would allow the District Court to 

sign court orders here but withhold that authority in other contexts. 

Unlike the other statutes discussed above, federal law does not 

expressly limit the power to grant warrants or court orders of this 

type to a court of general jurisdiction. 

E. Physical Inspection of Actual Phone

Finally, if a police officer merely wants to turn on a cellphone 

and physically examine its contents—perhaps after making an 

arrest of a suspect who was in possession of the phone—that search 

would be governed by the general warrant statute in CP § 1-203. 

See Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2495 (holding that a warrant is generally 

required to search the contents of a cellphone, even as part of a 

search incident to an arrest). Because such a search does not 

involve a wiretap, pen register, the live tracking of a phone’s 

location, or the compelled disclosure of stored information from a 

service provider, none of the specialized statutes applicable to 

those circumstances would apply. Under Maryland’s general 

warrant statute, a search warrant may be issued by either “[a] circuit 

court judge or District Court judge.” CP § 1-203(a)(1). Thus, a 

judge of the District Court may legally sign a search warrant for 

this type of search. 

III

Conclusion

A district court judge may sign a warrant or court order for 

the physical inspection of a cellphone under CP § 1-203 and for 

real time cellphone location information under CP § 1-203.1. A 

district court judge may not, however, sign a warrant or court order 

under Title 10 of the Courts & Judicial Proceedings Article for a 

wiretap, for stored electronic or wire communications or 

transactional records from a service provider, or for a pen register 

or trap and trace device.

Brian E. Frosh

Attorney General of Maryland

Patrick B. Hughes

Assistant Attorney General

Adam D. Snyder

Chief Counsel, Opinions & Advice