Name: People v. Riley and United States v. Wurie (2014)
Facts: In the first case Riley was stopped by a police officer for driving with expired registration
tags and later the officer found out the license had been suspended. An inventory search of the
card revealed two handguns concealed and loaded under the hood of the car. Riley’s smartphone
was examined by another officer that with the help of the digital information, found out that Riley
belonged to a street gang and he had been involved in a shooting a few weeks earlier. The
California Supreme Court denied Riley’s petition for review.
In the second case Wurie was found making an apparent drug sale from a car. Later in the police
station the officers realized one of Wurie’s cellphones kept receiving calls so they decided to trace
the number to his house finding there 215 grams of crack cocaine, marijuana, drug paraphernalia,
a firearm and ammunition, and cash. Wurie argued that the evidence was the fruit of an
unconstitutional search of his cell phone and then he asked to suppress the evidence. The District
Court denied the motion. Although a divided panel of the First Circuit reversed the denial of
Wurie’s motion to suppress and vacated Wurie’s convictions.
Issue: whether the evidence from Riley’s and Wurie’s phone used in the trial obtained through a
warrantless search violated their Fourth Amendment Right?
Holding: Unanimous Decision (9-0); 1 Concurrence. The United States Supreme Court’s holding:
information on the cellphone is not immune to search. Although a warrant is generally required
before such action happens, even when a cell phone is seized incident to arrest. Thus, the judgment
about suppressing evidence from a cell phone was affirmed. On the other hand the judgment
affirming the conviction was reversed and the case was going back to the trial court for reviewing.
