This Cоurt granted certiorari to the Court of Appeals to consider whether that Court
This case arises from the arrest of Haley Hawkins for various crimes, including an attempted violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act following an exchange of telephone text messages between Hawkins and a law enforcement officer who posed as another individual. After agreeing by text to meet the officer, ostensibly to purchase illegal drugs, Hawkins arrived in her car at the appointed place; there, the officer observed her entering data into her cell phоne, and he contemporaneously received a text message stating that she had arrived. The officer approached Hawkins’s vehicle and plaсed her under arrest; her vehicle was searched and her cell phone was found inside her purse. The arresting officer searched the cell phone for thе text messages he had exchanged with Hawkins, and then downloaded and printed them. Hawkins moved the trial court to suppress evidence of these text messages as thе product of an unreasonable search and seizure because it was accomplished without the authority of a warrant; the motion was denied, and the Court оf Appeals permitted an interlocutory appeal, and affirmed the trial court. 1
As the majority opinion of the Court of Appeals correctly noted,
[а]s a general rule, “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonablе under the Fourth Amendment^] subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States,389 U. S. 347 , 357 (88 SC 507, 19 LE2d 576) (1967). “Among the exceptions to the warrant requirement is a search incident to lawful arrest.” Arizona v. Gant,556 U. S. 332 (129 SC 1710, 1716 (II), 173 LE2d 485) (2009).
Hawkins, supra at 255 (l). 2
As noted in
Gant,
in many instances, “the offense of arrest will supply a basis for searching the passenger compartment of an arrestee’s vehicle
and any containers
therein,” supra at 344 (III) (emphasis supplied), when “it is ‘reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle.’ [Cit.]” Id. at 343. Sеe also
United States v. Ross,
Hawkins argues that the cell phone at issue cannot be treated as a container becausе it does not ordinarily contain another physical object. See
New York v. Belton,
The dissent in the Court of Appeals notes that a cell phone may contain large amounts of private information, including “ ‘recent-call lists, emails, text messages, and photographs.’ [Cit.]”
Hawkins,
supra at 265 (Phiрps, E J., dissenting). However, we do not believe that the potential volume of information contained in a cell phone changes its character; it is an objeсt that can store considerable evidence of the crime for which the suspect has been arrested, and that evidence may be transitory in nature.
3
And, the mere fact that there is a potentially high volume of information stored in the cell phone should not control the question of whether that electronic containеr may be searched. See
People v. Diaz,
However, the fact that a large amount of information may be in a cell phone has substantial import as to the scоpe of the permitted search; it requires, as the Court of Appeals majority noted, that “we must apply the principles set forth in traditional ‘container’ cases to searches for electronic data with great care and caution.” Hawkins, supra at 257-258 (l). 4 And, the majority opinion of the Court of Appeals gave appropriаte guidance regarding the scope of a search of a cell phone incident to arrest: the “search must be limited as much as is reasonably practiсable by the object of the search. [Cit.]” Id. at 258. That will usually mean that an officer may not conduct a “fishing expedition” and sift through all of the data stored in the cell phоne. Thus, when “the object of the search is to discover certain text messages, for instance, there is no need for the officer to sift through photos or audio filеs or Internet browsing history data stored [in] the phone.” Id. at 259 (Footnote omitted). Accordingly, reviewing the reasonable scope of the search will largely be a fаct-specific inquiry. Id. at 259, n. 6.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
Further facts can be found in the opinion of the Court of Appeals. Hawkins, supra.
There is no dispute that the arrest of Hawkins was lawful.
Although there was no evidence regarding factual issues such as the potential for remote deletion of the information in Hawkins’s cell phone, or continued storage of suсh information therein absent action, we note that other courts have recognized the potential for information stored in a cell phone or similar device to be lost if not captured quickly. See, e.g.,
United States v. Ortiz,
The Court of Appeals has recently reiterated the caution expressed in
Hawkins,
although in the context of a search pursuant to a warrant. See
Henson v. State,