In this instance, the search of a robbery suspect’s pack while he was being examined yielded a ring, a digital camera, and other things. The police warrantlessly examined the digital phone, seeing a photo of the suspect next to a gun later discovered to have been stolen. This led to two sentences: one for the stolen goods and one for carrying a gun without a license.
The defense questioned all of the testimony resulting from the warrantless search of the pack, but the state got to keep a secret of what it found, along with the punishment for theft. But it didn’t get to keep the firearm sentence, as the court here sees digital cameras to be essentially no different than cell phones when it comes to warrantless searches and the Riley decision. From the opinion:
The Commonwealth stands that Riley does not implement because of digital cameras, lacking the ability to work as computers, are not comparable to cell phones for Fourth Amendment purposes. We fail to address the constitutionality of the search of the digital camera on Fourth Amendment grounds, but we apply the logic in Riley in holding that the search of the camera broke art. 14.
As the court points out, there’s nothing in the law that permits officers to warrantlessly search something if that something acts no risk to officer safety or the protection of evidence. Searching the backpack is fine, because it may have carried a weapon. But searching the camera isn’t because a camera isn’t a weapon (the US Supreme Court made the same comment about cell phones) and the possibility of evidence elimination even lower in a device with poor or zero network connectivity.
This thought presents a compelling basis to exclude digital cameras from the reach of the search event to a lawful arrest complaint to the warrant requirement. Like the cell phone, the twin threats of “harm to officers and destruction of evidence” are not being with regard to the data on a digital camera.
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