Florida Supreme Court Rules Police Need Warrant To Search Cell Phones

An anonymous reader writes "In a case stemming from a Jacksonville burglary, the Florida Supreme Court ruled 5-2 Thursday that police must get a search warrant before searching someone's cell phone. 'At this time, we cannot ignore that a significant portion of our population relies upon cell phones for email communications, text message information, scheduling, and banking,' read the majority opinion (PDF), authored by Justice Fred Lewis. 'The position of the dissent, which would permit the search here even though no issue existed with regard to officer safety or evidence preservation, is both contrary to, and the antithesis of, the fundamental protections against government intrusion guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.'"

Comments

Re:A win for me!

[Cutting_Crew]

Well, pretty good quality of life(lots of sunshine, some good schools, tons of fun stuff to do), no state taxes.... its not all that bad at all.

the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear this

[nomadic]

Just FYI everyone, the Florida Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the Florida state constitution, and it's well-settled precedent that state constitutions can provide greater protection than the Federal constitution. The only way this case could have legitimately gotten to the U.S. Supreme Court is if the Florida Supreme Court found that a warrant WASN'T necessary. The defendant then could have asked the USCT to find that under the 4th and 14th amendment one was required.

Re:the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear this

[nomadic]

Actually everyone just ignore that, while what I said is true generally, in this specific case they're ruling on the U.S. 4th amendment, not Florida's equivalent (and Florida is something of a special case in that the Florida constitution explicitly says the USCT determines 4th amendment protections).