State v. James, 301 Kan. 898

Police stopped Tommy Ray James for a defective headlight; officers smelled alcohol, found an open container in the car, and arrested James.
While handcuffed, an officer retrieved James’ phone from his hip pocket and asked about text messages; the officer then read the texts and found messages suggesting drug sales.
During a subsequent search of the vehicle, officers found a plastic bag of marijuana in the glove box and a drug scale; James denied ownership and pointed to his brother as a possible owner.
James was charged with possession with intent to distribute and related offenses; he moved to suppress the text messages from his phone.
The district court denied suppression, finding the search was incident to arrest and that James had consented; the Court of Appeals affirmed.
The Kansas Supreme Court granted review, applied Riley, held the warrantless phone search violated the Fourth Amendment, found James did not give voluntary consent, and reversed his convictions as the error was not harmless.

Issue	James' Argument	State's Argument	Held
Whether warrantless search of phone incident to arrest was lawful	Robinson-style search incident to arrest permits viewing phone contents	Robinson/Belton rationale permits search incident to arrest	Search violated Fourth Amendment; Riley controls and phone-data searches generally require a warrant
Whether James consented to phone search	Any indication that James pointed to his hip and referenced brother’s number did not amount to voluntary, specific consent	Hip movement and statement about brother’s number amounted to consent to retrieve and view phone	Consent was coerced/not voluntary; State failed to prove voluntariness
Whether admission of text messages was harmless error	Admission of texts was prejudicial and central to establishing knowledge and intent	Other evidence (marijuana in car, scale, admissions about scale) made error harmless	Error not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; texts were critical and affected outcome; reversal required
Whether statutory (K.S.A. 22-2501) or Fourth Amendment standard governs searches incident to arrest	Julian/Anderson suggested applying statutory limits that can be more protective than Fourth Amendment	State argued post-Henning statutory silence should be filled by Fourth Amendment caselaw	Court overruled Julian in part: where statute is silent, Fourth Amendment governs; applied constitutional analysis here

United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (search incident to lawful arrest permits search of items on person)
Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (search incident to arrest limited to area within immediate control to protect officer and preserve evidence)
New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (permitted search of passenger compartment incident to arrest)
Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (limits vehicle searches incident to arrest to situations where arrestee within reaching distance or vehicle likely contains evidence of the offense)
Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (search of digital information on a cell phone generally requires a warrant)
Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229 (new rules of constitutional criminal procedure apply retroactively on direct review)
Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218 (consent to search must be voluntary; voluntariness is a factual inquiry)