{"id":197,"date":"2013-05-14T05:22:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T05:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.massachusettscriminaldefenselawyerblog.com\/2013\/05\/do-police-need-warrants-to-sea.html"},"modified":"2013-05-14T05:22:25","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T05:22:25","slug":"do-police-need-warrants-to-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/do-police-need-warrants-to-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Police Need Warrants to Search Cell Phones? Florida Supreme Court says Yes!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><small><\/small><small><\/small>As technology advances, a slew of new legal issues have found their way into courts across America. Social media networks, email, texting, and other technological communications pose new questions surrounding citizens&#8217; privacy, the 4th amendment, and search\/seizures issues for police. Recently, a Florida Supreme Court ruled that police are required to obtain a search warrant before examining the contents of an arrestee&#8217;s cell phone.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.floridasupremecourt.org\/decisions\/2013\/sc11-1130.pdf\">Smallwood v. State<\/a>, the defendant was arrested for allegedly committing an armed robbery of a convenience store. Upon his arrest, police confiscated and examined the contents of a cell phone in the defendant&#8217;s possession at the time of his arrest. Police discovered incriminating evidence on the phone, including images of a handgun, and photos of stacks of cash that were taken after the date of the robbery. However, the defendant argued that his 4th amendment right was violated.<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution\">4th amendment<\/a>, United States citizens have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Warrants can only be obtained with probable cause and should specifically describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Further, to have probable cause, police must have legally sufficient reasons to believe a search is necessary. Law enforcement cannot just seize property to use as evidence without first obtaining a warrant. While evolving technology that provides instant access to a person&#8217;s bank accounts, medical records, contacts, photos, and communications pose seemingly new questions on search\/seizure, the courts have faced these issues historically.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/do-police-need-warrants-to-sea\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Do Police Need Warrants to Search Cell Phones? Florida Supreme Court says Yes!\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As technology advances, a slew of new legal issues have found their way into courts across America. Social media networks, email, texting, and other technological communications pose new questions surrounding citizens&#8217; privacy, the 4th amendment, and search\/seizures issues for police. Recently, a Florida Supreme Court ruled that police are required to obtain a search warrant [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constitutional-defenses-in-drug-cases"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Do Police Need Warrants to Search Cell Phones? Florida Supreme Court says Yes! &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; May 14, 2013<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As technology advances, a slew of new legal issues have found their way into courts across America. Social media networks, email, texting, and other &#8212; May 14, 2013\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/do-police-need-warrants-to-sea\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Do Police Need Warrants to Search Cell Phones? Florida Supreme Court says Yes! &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; May 14, 2013\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"As technology advances, a slew of new legal issues have found their way into courts across America. Social media networks, email, texting, and other &#8212; May 14, 2013\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael DelSignore\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Do Police Need Warrants to Search Cell Phones? Florida Supreme Court says Yes! &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; May 14, 2013","description":"As technology advances, a slew of new legal issues have found their way into courts across America. Social media networks, email, texting, and other &#8212; May 14, 2013","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/do-police-need-warrants-to-sea\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Do Police Need Warrants to Search Cell Phones? Florida Supreme Court says Yes! &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; May 14, 2013","twitter_description":"As technology advances, a slew of new legal issues have found their way into courts across America. Social media networks, email, texting, and other &#8212; May 14, 2013","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Michael DelSignore","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/do-police-need-warrants-to-sea\/","url":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/do-police-need-warrants-to-sea\/","name":"Do Police Need Warrants to Search Cell Phones? Florida Supreme Court says Yes! &#8212; Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog &#8212; May 14, 2013","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-05-14T05:22:25+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.delsignoredefense.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f0bc58f94b3abb11fcd52cf8961c0a6e"},"description":"As technology advances, a slew of new legal issues have found their way into courts across America. 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