South Carolina v. Brown

At issue before the South Carolina Supreme Court was whether the digital information stored on a cell phone may be abandoned such that its privacy is no longer protected by the Fourth Amendment. The victim contacted police after discovering her condominium had been burglarized. The window was broken in one of the bedrooms; a television, laptop computers and some jewelry was taken. The phone was found at the scene of the break-in. A responding police officer took the cell phone at issue in this appeal to the police station and secured it. Days later, the detective retrieving the phone from the locker saw the background picture of a black male with dreadlocks. Considering the phone to be "abandoned property," he guessed the code to unlock the screen—1-2-3-4—and opened the phone without a warrant. The detective looked through the "contacts" stored on the phone and found a person listed as "Grandma." He entered "Grandma's" phone number into a database called Accurint and identified a list of her relatives, which included a man matching the age of the person pictured on the background screen of the cell phone—defendant Lamar Brown. The detective entered Brown's name into the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles database and looked at Brown's driver's license photograph. After comparing the photographs, the detective determined Brown was the man pictured on the screen of the cell phone. Brown was questioned; Brown admitted the phone belonged to him, but that it was lost. Brown admitted that no one else could have had his cell phone on the night of the burglary. Brown was ultimately charged with first degree burglary. The trial court determined the information on the cell phone in this case had been abandoned, and admitted it into evidence. A divided panel of the court of appeals affirmed. The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals. View "South Carolina v. Brown" on Justia Law