Canadian Supreme Court Lets Police Conduct Warrantless Cell Phone Searches of Arrestees

In
June 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that police
officers who search the cell phones of arrested individuals without
first obtaining a search warrant are in violation of the Fourth
Amendment. “Our answer to the question of what police must do
before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is
accordingly simple,” declared Chief Justice John Roberts in
Riley v. California:
“get a warrant.”

The Canadian Supreme Court, by contrast, has decided to give its
country’s police officers much more room to maneuver. In a decision
handed down this week, Canada’s high court ruled that a warrantless
cell phone search incident to arrest is perfectly legitimate under
Canadian law. Sean Fine of Toronto’s Globe and Mail

has the story:

In a crime ruling that earned it rare praise from the federal
government, the Supreme Court of Canada said police may search
cellphones without a warrant when they make an arrest.

Cellphones are the bread and butter of the drug trade, the
majority said in a 4-3 ruling. It said police have been given the
“extraordinary power” to do warrantless searches during an arrest,
under common-law rules developed by judges over centuries, because
of the importance of prompt police investigations. Until now, those
searches typically included purses and briefcases….

“Prompt access by law enforcement to the contents of a cellphone
may serve the purpose of identifying accomplices or locating and
preserving evidence that might otherwise be lost or destroyed,”
Justice Thomas Cromwell wrote for the majority, joined by Chief
Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justices Richard Wagner and Michael
Moldaver.