People v. Herrera, 357 P.3d 1227

Fremont County received a report that Herrera had sexual interactions with a juvenile, Faith W.; officers had printouts of online chats and Herrera's number.
Detective Dodd texted Herrera posing as a 14‑year‑old girl "Stazi"; those texts led to Herrera's arrest and seizure of his cellphone.
A warrant authorized searching the phone for (1) texts between Herrera and "Stazi," (2) photographs tied to those texts, and (3) indicia of ownership showing the phone belonged to Herrera.
The phone was not Cellebrite‑compatible, so Detective Slattery performed a manual, camera‑photographed inspection; he found a Kik message folder labeled "Faith Fallout."
Slattery opened the folder, saw messages between Herrera and Faith W., and those messages were later suppressed by the trial court; the People appealed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (People)	Defendant's Argument (Herrera)	Held
Whether the warrant for "indicia of ownership" authorized searching the "Faith Fallout" folder	Any data on the phone could reveal ownership, so the warrant authorized searching all messages (including "Faith Fallout")	Warrant must be particular; searching folder not tied to "Stazi" exceeded scope	Rejected: allowing all phone data would create an unconstitutional general warrant; warrant did not authorize opening that folder
Whether the plain view exception justified opening and reading the "Faith Fallout" messages	While searching legitimately, officer saw the folder name and could open it; folder name made incriminating nature apparent, so plain view applies	Folder was a closed container tied to a different number; officer lacked lawful access to its contents without a warrant	Rejected: initial intrusion and apparent incriminating nature satisfied plain view's first two prongs, but third prong (lawful right to access) failed because folder was not a place where "Stazi" messages would reasonably be found

People v. Roccaforte, 919 P.2d 799 (Colo. 1996) (describing and condemning general, exploratory warrants)
Riley v. California, 134 S. Ct. 2473 (U.S. 2014) (explaining heightened privacy interests in cell phones and limiting searches incident to arrest)
People v. Gothard, 185 P.3d 180 (Colo. 2008) (setting three‑part plain view test)
People v. Dumas, 955 P.2d 60 (Colo. 1998) (applying plain view principles to seizure of documents during a lawful search)
United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798 (U.S. 1982) (search of closed containers within scope of a warranted area)
United States v. Burgess, 576 F.3d 1078 (10th Cir. 2009) (recognizing practical limits on restricting digital searches by filenames/directories)
United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (U.S. 1984) (establishing the good‑faith exception to the exclusionary rule)