Supreme Court to consider whether warrant is needed to seize and search cell phones

Disagree, Oh Lord of the Pies.

Take the situation suggested above: obtaining a warrant to access the data in a vehicle's computer to determine speed, rate of acceleration, application of brakes, rate of deceleration, etc. To hold the computer (and the vehicle in question) during an investigation while obtaining a warrant is OK. That, with other physical evidence, is used to indicate whether or not a crime was committed.

Is there evidence before the investigation? NO, the investigation is held to find and determine what is the evidence and what is not. I don't have the access to Purdon's that I had before, but you can find the appropriate cases for holding the vehicle there.

How that pertains to a cell phone, I don't know. Then again, seemingly minor differences in facts can make a big difference. The easiest illustration: a cop walking, when on a sidewalk and passing an open window of a house and looking in the window, a crime or evidence of a crime is observed. That can be used as PC to obtain a warrant. If that window is covered by a curtain or shade that somewhat obscures the cops view and the cop needs to move off the sidewalk onto the persons's property, there is an expectation of privacy and the information obtained by looking in the window cannot be used to get a warrant.

flame away

 

It's called investigation for a reason... to determine whether or not a crime was committed and what the evidence is.

Duh....

 

:up:

 

Sean, the indication of a crime, what ever that might be, is almost certainly going to part of the body of evidence of the crime once the crime is more fully discovered. For instance, if you walked down a street one night and came upon a knife that had what looked like blood on it, but no stabbed-to-death body was present, then you would have an indication of a crime, but that's all. Hopefully, you would call the police and the police would respond and collect the knife as though it was evidence of a serious crime. If a stabbed-to-death body was found in some nearby bushes the next day, then the crime would be discovered and the knife would be considered evidence of that crime. In this illustration, the knife would be physical evidence. The indication of a crime can also be what somebody states. If you approached a cop and said "hey, I think I just saw my neighbor stab his girlfriend with a knife, put the woman and the knife in a car and drive the car away", then your statement would be an indication of a crime, but you still wouldn't have a known crime. If the neighbor, his girlfriend, or the car, was found and the described crime was discovered, then your statement to the cop would also be considered evidence of that crime, but it wouldn't be physical evidence. Does this make sense, or am I missing something?

 

Some serious stretching to justify the position going on in here.

I guess I should have washed the knife I was cleaning fish with previously a little more thoroughly before dropping it on the sidewalk.

 

True, but if everyone assumes it's fish blood, does nothing and the knife ends up being embedded in somebody's tire and driven away to who knows where a few hours before the body is found, then there goes an important piece of evidence in a homicide and everyone involved has egg on their faces. If the victim turned out to be one of your loved ones, then you'd be raising hell about the knife not being treated like important evidence from the get-go. Sometimes, you have to err on the side of caution, especially when you're in the field and don't have all of the facts. You can't have it both ways. This line of reasoning can be taken too far, however.

 

I used the bloody knife illustration because it makes an often misunderstood subject easier to understand and it seemed applicable. Since you didn't indicate who, or what, you were responding to in post 20, your specificity wasn't apparent. I haven't noticed anyone in this thread talking about seizing phones from random people walking down the street, or seizing phones because random people have reported crimes, so, what were / are you talking about? Although the subjects of when law enforcement can search a phone and when they can seize it are related, the linked-to article is about the former, not the latter, and I'm pretty sure I know how the supreme court will rule on the matter. Phones aren't much different than cars in this context.

 

Investigations (typically) occur after the crime has been committed to determine guilt, innocence, motive, who, what and where.

 

Actually just don't answer. Then they cannot claim anything you did gave them cause.