Yes, under most circumstances law enforcement officers need a warrant to search your cellphone. In today’s world, cellphones hold access to our most personal information. Family photos, calendars, banking information, call history, text message history, and location data that shows where our phone was or was not on a particular date and at a particular time are just a few types of information that can be stored on a cellphone. As Chief Justice John Roberts made clear in the Supreme Court’s decision in Riley v. California, “Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cellphone seized (during) an arrest is simple – get a warrant.” In that case, the Court found that a person has a legitimate privacy interest in the contents of their cellphone. For that reason, the contents of your cellphone are protected by the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure. Law enforcement must have a warrant or a recognized exception to the warrant requirement to conduct a search of your cellphone. The exceptions to this warrant requirement are few. If law enforcement searches your cell phone without a warrant, any evidence found on the cellphone should be excluded from consideration in determining your guilt at trial. The lawyers at McKenzie Scott are experienced litigators and routinely file motions to suppress evidence where law enforcement officers violated the constitutional rights of our clients during their arrests including in circumstances where law enforcement conducted forensic searches of computers, cellphones, and other personal devices.