Obama administration asks Supreme Court to allow warrantless cellphone searches

[merrily]

44. I don't know how the SCOTUS will come out.

I've been reading the Circuit Court opinion at the link Cali gave upthread

The Circuit Court said that the facts of the Massachusetts case are more like the facts of the Chimel case than the Robinson case. So, the exact facts are going to be everything.

Before I put my foot in my post again, I want to finish at least skimming the court opinion, then compare at least the wikis on Chimel and Robinson. However, the Court said that safety in taking the suspect into custody had played a role in Robinson-an allegedly unidentifiable bulge detected during a routine pat down. (The Court had assumed everything else about the Robinson arrest to have been lawful.)

That may apply to a suspect carrying a cell phone detected during a routine pat down, if you only take custody of the phone. But it really doesn't apply to going through the contents of the cell phone. And, unlike bringing the suspect from the point of arrest to the station house, as was the issue in Robinson, there is no hurry in inspecting the contents of a cell phone that would justify not going to court for a warrant first.

So, it pays to read the opinion first, which I should have done before I attempted to say something about the new case.