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February 2017
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Court: Unsupported Assertions And Broad Language Aren't Enough To Support Cell Phone Searches

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Another court has stepped up to inform law enforcement that just because criminals are known to use cell phones doesn't mean any cell phone possessed by a suspect is fair game -- warrant or no warrant.This time it's the Superior Court of Delaware making the point. In its suppression of evidence found on a seized cell phone, the Superior Court makes it clear that cell phones are used by everyone -- not just criminals. Not only that, but if an officer is going to seek a warrant that effectively allows them access to the owner's entire life, the warrant needs to contain more specifics and limitations than this one did.During a consensual search of an apartment where a homicide suspect (Qualeel Westcott) was staying, police came across heroin and three mobile phones. All three of the phones were seized. A warrant was obtained to search the content of the phones. But a warrant alone isn't good enough. While a warrant is better than nothing at all, the warrant here -- according to the court -- barely exceeded "nothing at all."While the court does recognize [PDF] there's a good likelihood that phones possessed by suspects will often contain useful evidence of criminal activity, it takes far more than the bare bones assertions made by the officer obtaining the warrant, which did almost nothing to establish a relationship between the phone and suspected criminal activity. (via FourthAmendment.com)

[H]owever, Detective Sergeant Horsman did not expressly state any nexus between Mr. Westcott's ownership of the mobile phone and the existence of evidence of the crimes (including a confession) on that mobile phone. Although the magistrate may draw reasonable inferences from the factual allegations of the affidavit, the leap required here is a long one. The mere fact that a defendant owns a mobile phone is not, in and of itself, sufficient to warrant an inference that evidence of any crime he or she commits may be found on that mobile phone. The affidavit did not provide probable cause for a search.
The court goes on to point out that even if Sergeant Horsman had managed to do a better job establishing a nexus, the warrant would still fail because of how broadly written it was. State law, along with judicial precedent, have set the bar higher for warrants seeking information stored in citizens' cell phones. As the Supreme Court pointed out in its Riley decision, phones are not simply "containers" that can be rifled through with a minimum of particularity. They are people's "entire lives." With that in mind, the warrant sought in this case is an abject failure.
Here, the search warrant authorizes a search of all "data and cellular logs." This description does not limit the scope of the officer's search of the mobile phones to relevant material and does not place any limitation on the types of "data, media, and files" to be searched.There is also no temporal limitation on the search. The police alleged that the shooting occurred on May 11 and the presence of heroin at the apartment provided probable cause for its recent distribution. The police should have sought a more limited search warrant permitting the search of suitably recent data from the phones.Instead, the application sought a general search "of the three phones." The warrant thus provides broad permission to rummage through the entire digital lives of the phones' owners. Accordingly, it does not contain the level of particularity required under the Constitution of the United States, the Delaware Constitution, or Delaware statute.
Yes, it's true that criminals use cell phones. That makes them indistinguishable from a majority of the United States' population. But the wealth of information stored in the average cell phone makes them far different than a filing cabinet or a cardboard box full of personal papers. Courts are doing a (slightly) better job at demanding more from law enforcement officers when they seek to access these contents. The first part of it is to establish something more than "criminals use cell phones" when seeking a warrant. The second part is even more important: limiting the search to just what's needed to uncover evidence related to the criminal act. Particularity is a must. Without it, a cell phone search warrant is nothing more than a boilerplate-backed Law Enforcement Fishing Expedition (Short Form).

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Pro-Marijuana Student Organization Wins Court Case Over Using School Logos

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We've seen stories in the past in which higher educational institutions attempt to slap down students' use of school iconography when it comes to advocating for marijuana legalization. Trademark law is the preferred bludgeoning tool in many of these cases, regardless of whether or not the uses in question actually pass the muster on the tests for Fair Use. Still, at least in most of these cases the schools are at least quick to act and staunch in their attempts to silence a completely valid political position by the student body.That's not so in the recent dust up between a pro-marijuana student group and Iowa State University. In this particular case, the student group got approval from ISU to use school trademarks, only to have that approval rescinded once a bunch of politicians got involved. The organization created by students is called the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.

When NORML ISU first formed, in 2012, group members submitted a request for approval of a t-shirt saying "Freedom is NORML at ISU" with a small cannabis leaf above the slogan, and the Trademark Office initially approved it.Soon thereafter, the Des Moines Register ran an article about marijuana legalization in which ISU student Josh Montgomery, then president of the school's NORML chapter, mentioned that ISU was supportive of his organization's efforts and had even approved the aforementioned t-shirt. On the day the Register article ran, the Iowa House Republicans Caucus sent a formal letter to ISU leadership asking whether they had actually approved the NORML t-shirt. By the end of the day, ISU President Steven Leath and his top staff were emailing one another to discuss whether the school could revoke approval of the NORML design. The next day, a representative from the Iowa Governor's Office of Drug Control Policy personally contacted ISU administrators to voice concern with their t-shirt approval policies.
And almost immediately after that, ISU suddenly began putting holds on the approval for NORML's applications for using similar designs for t-shirts. Then came the rejections of all subsequent applications that included an image of a cannabis leaf, as well as an edict demanding that all of the group's future designs be submitted to the school for approval. NORML ISU then filed a lawsuit against the school, arguing that this arbitrary flip-flopping on the group's use of school trademarks was a violation of the students' First Amendment rights, as the decisions were being made clearly based on protected political speech. The District Court agreed, after which the school appealed.And now the appeals court has affirmed the lower court's ruling.
On Monday, the appeals court affirmed the district court's ruling, concluding that students' "attempts to obtain approval to use ISU's trademarks on NORML ISU's merchandise amounted to constitutionally protected speech." And state schools cannot discriminate against constitutionally protected speech on the basis of its viewpoint without proving that this restriction serves a compelling governmental interest and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.
Specifically, the court decided that the school's decisions to refuse NORML's applications and designs were based on the political push-back it received from state politicians, making it a clear violation of free speech rights. Which is a pretty stunning thing for a public university to have done, if you think about it. State reps from one party from one state got a public university made up of students from all over the country to attempt to silence a perfectly valid political position by a student organization. Whatever such action is, it certainly isn't in the interest of, ahem, higher education.Good on the court for getting this right.

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