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69 Vand. L. Rev. 585 (2016)
The Post-Riley Search Warrant: Search Protocols and Particularity in Cell Phone Searches

handle is hein.journals/vanlr69 and id is 607 raw text is: VANDERBILT LAW REVIEW VOLUME 69 APRIL 2016 NUMBER 3 ARTICLES The Post-Riley Search Warrant: Search Protocols and Particularity in Cell Phone Searches Adam M. Gershowitz* Last year, in Riley v. California, the Supreme Court required police to procure a warrant before searching a cell phone. Unfortunately, the Court's assumption that requiring search warrants would be simple and very protective of privacy was overly optimistic. This article reviews lower court decisions in the year since Riley and finds that the search warrant requirement is far less protective than expected. Rather than restricting search warrants to the narrow evidence being sought, some magistrates have issued expansive warrants authorizing a search of the entire contents of the phone with no restrictions whatsoever. Other courts have authorized searches of applications and data for which no probable cause existed. And even when district and appellate courts have found these overbroad search warrants to be defective, they have almost always turned to the good faith exception to save the searches and allow admission of the evidence. This Article calls on courts to take the Fourth Amendment's particularity requirement seriously before issuing search warrants for cell * Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development & Kelly Professor of Teaching Excellence, William & Mary Law School. I am grateful to Jeff Bellin, Orin Kerr, Paul Marcus, Tommy Miller, and Paul Ohm for helpful comments and to Elizabeth Rademacher and Louis Mascola for research assistance.

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