Both of the new cases on cellphone privacy involve the authority of police, who do not have a search warrant, to examine the data that is stored on a cellphone taken from a suspect at the time of arrest. The two cases span the advance in technology of cellphones: the government case, Wurie, involves the kind of device that is now considered old-fashioned — the simple flip phone. The Riley case involves the more sophisticated type of device, which functions literally as a hand-held computer, capable of containing a great deal more personal information.
The state case involves a San Diego man, David Leon Riley, convicted of shooting at an occupied vehicle, attempted murder, and assault with a semi-automatic weapon. Riley was not arrested at the time of the shooting incident in August 2009; instead, he was arrested later, after he was stopped for driving with expired license plates. Police seized the cellphone he was carrying at the time of his arrest, and twice examined its contents, without a warrant.
The data turned up evidence identifying him as a gang member out to kill members of a rival gang. Other contents included a photo of him with a red car seen at the shooting site. Police were then able to trace calls, leading to a trail of evidence pointing to Riley as a participant in the shooting. No one positively identified him, but the data from the cellphone search was put before the jury, which convicted him of all three counts. He has been sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison.