Colorado v. Davis

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After finding himself in custody on an arrest warrant, defendant Shaun Davis wanted someone to contact his girlfriend about retrieving the car he had with him. He invited a police officer to use Davis’s cell phone to call her, and he gave his cell phone’s passcode to the officer. Following a station house interview, Davis repeated his request. Again, he asked the police to contact his girlfriend. And again, he offered up his passcode. The police later obtained a warrant to search the contents of Davis’s cell phone. Without seeking Davis’s or the court’s specific consent, the police used the previously provided passcode to execute the search warrant. Davis asked the trial court to suppress his statements about the passcode and any evidence from the phone, arguing his statements about the passcode were involuntary and that they were taken in violation of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona. 384 U.S. 456 (1966). He also contended that the search warrant was overbroad and lacked probable cause. The trial court rejected Davis’s arguments. The court found that Davis gave “very limited” consent for the police to use the passcode to search his phone for his girlfriend’s phone number, not general consent to search everything in his phone. Because the trial court concluded that the search exceeded the scope of Davis’s consent, it suppressed any evidence recovered from the phone. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed: on the facts presented here, the Supreme Court concluded the search of the phone was not a consent search, but rather a search pursuant to a valid warrant, and Davis did not manifest a legitimate expectation of privacy as to his passcode. Accordingly, law enforcement was at liberty to use the passcode to execute the search warrant. View "Colorado v. Davis" on Justia Law