N.D.Cal.: Pre-Riley warrantless state search of cell phone was valid, so GFE applies

Defendant’s cell phone was searched without a warrant pre-Riley under California’s Diaz which expressly permitted warrantless cell phone searches. Therefore, that search was valid at the time under the good faith exception. United States v. Williams, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21328 (N.D.Cal. Feb. 22, 2016):

The good faith exception to the exclusionary rule did not apply to Harding’s 2010 search because of the lack of binding state or federal authority authorizing it. Dkt. No. 632, p.3-5. The search of Williams’s phone in 2012 is different because in 2011, the California Supreme Court decided People v. Diaz, 51 Cal.4th 84, 119 Cal. Rptr. 3d 105, 244 P.3d 501 (2011), which upheld a warrantless, delayed search of a cell phone seized incident to arrest. It allowed such a search “even [where] a substantial period of time has elapsed between the arrest and subsequent administrative processing, on the one hand, and the taking of the property for use as evidence, on the other,” and even if the property subject to search at the time of the arrest “is not physically taken from the defendant until sometime after his incarceration.” Id. at 92 (internal quotation marks omitted).

It is of no moment under Diaz that Williams’s cell phone was not downloaded for more than four hours after Williams’s arrest, while he was being transferred at his request to San Francisco. Diaz was binding precedent authorizing the search in 2012. The officers therefore acted with objectively reasonable reliance on the governing law at the time. The good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies and Williams’s motion concerning the cell phone search following his arrest in 2012 is DENIED.