As a Libertarian, I strongly believe in the rights of the individual. A recent Ohio Supreme Court decision made me smile. In State v. Smith, Slip Opinion No. 2009-Ohio-6426, the Court held that a police officer cannot search someone’s cell phone contents without a warrant unless the officer’s safety is in danger. This is an important protection for those of us who keep much of their personal information on their cell phones. It is possible that this case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which could result in a different ruling. As always, a police officer can search the contents of your phone if you give the officer your permission. In a world where our privacy rights seem to be shrinking every day, I’m glad that some Court’s are still upholding our Constitutional rights.
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In the eyes of the law 
Kim,
Thanks so much for starting this blog! I look forward to your insights!
Interesting. Like it. Laurie
Thank you, Kim. I look forward to becoming more aware of the many cases & laws out there through your blog.
As a practicing attorney for over 31 years, I have handled many criminal cases where the police, either prior to, during, or after the arrest of the defendant, crossed the line as to what is a permissible search and seizure of evidence. Two of the most notable, one in Federal Court, USA vs. Dennison, et al., where the police went and found the Defendant’s pickup truck where he had stashed it in a field about 20 feet above the side road and where it was not visible from the asphalt side road. Two local deputies found it, looked into the bed of the truck and found several rifles, and also, several duffle bags which were zipped up tight and closed, about 1am. They proceeded to open the duffles, without a search warrant, and found pot. They, then with this prior knowledge, called other officers and videod the contents of the truck and truck bed, not bothering to first get a warrant. They then went to the judge’s home around 5am or so, and then got him to sign a search warrant. We filed a Motion to Suppress Evidence and to Dismiss the case and a supporting brief. We had hired a plane and former DEA Agent, then retired, to fly with our investigator over the area and to time the distance and speed from the Defendant’s trailer home to the truck site and they then determined it was about 0.6 miles. When they arrested the defendant, after the truck search, they opened his briefcase and found about $125,000 cash and several Bank Savings Books and other accounts totally around $625K. We researched around 2000 cases all throughout the U.S. on search and seizure, notwithstanding the fact that all cases similar to our facts were in our favor, the Federal Judge ruled against us and denied our Motion to Suppress. Our Motion to Reconsider also was ruled against, so we took it up on appeal to the U.S. 7th Circuit (one step below the US Supreme Court) in Chicago, and they upheld the Federal Judge’s decision. In retrospect, there was too much cash involved, and I think the Judge did not want to cut all that cash loose, as the Government filed a “forfeiture count”, and all that money went to the Government as a result of this bad decision made by one Judge. The client did not have the money to allow me to take it on up to the U.S.Supreme Court. Had he did, I felt we would win.
The other case involved deputies gaining access to a storage building, in something like a U-Store It string of buildings. They got the key under a pretext from the lessee of the Unit, who had in turn leased her interest in the storage unit to my client who had the other key. ONce the deputies got inside, they found several suitcases, with pot of course. Again, we researched it thoroughly and filed our Motion to Dismiss on various grounds, violation of the 4th Amendment, wire and phone and interstate fraud. What happened later as a result of our Motion which was not ruled upon because the State Attorney General filed their own criminal action against my two clients, was that my Motion and Brief set up the Defendants for an excellent plea bargain. The AG wanted to give the elder guy 20-30 years, and his girlfriend 12 years. This was his 3rd offense, her 1st. Result: Guilty pleas, two years parole, no further jail time, and check in with probation once per month. A good result.
Jack L. Quarant
I agree with you that our privacy rights are shrinking away. I never thought about police asking to search our phones. It is scary to think about how much information we store in our phones now of days. I glad that the court ruled in favor of privacy, because being able to search though our phone equates to violating our right to remain silent (at least to me anyway).
That’s interesting. I definitely have to side with you on this one. I know this guy who was recently pulled over and found with some marijuana in his car. The police officers asked if they could search the car and the guy said no. They went ahead and searched it anyways and found a sufficient amount of marijuana in his trunk. The officer then decided to confiscate his ipad and phone. It’s been a few weeks and the officer still has his belongings. This is what I thought of when reading the State v Smith case. it seems like police officers are given more and more discretion and less restrictions/supervision. It’s nice to see a case where the court decided to limit one officers discretion.
It is reassuring that they are starting a movement by starting to bring to light the lack of rights we are given. They are definitely starting a wave to better protection of privacy.