Cal.6: SW for fingerprint to unlock cell phone wasn’t unreasonable under 4A or testimonial compulsion under 5A

The officers here got a search warrant which required defendant to submit to unlocking his cell phone with his fingerprint. They opened the phone, but then it locked and they needed a second warrant to unlock it again. The affidavit could be read with the warrant to provide probable cause for all this. The use of a fingerprint, a thing used for common identification, to unlock a phone is not testimonial compulsion. Finally, the good faith exception applies because officers obtained three warrants. People v. Ramirez, 2023 Cal. App. LEXIS 986 (6th Dist. Dec. 22, 2023):

. . . None of the four Leon scenarios where the good faith exception does not apply is present here. Defendant points to no misinformation in Gonzalez’s affidavits. No evidence was presented to the trial court concerning the magistrate abandoning a judicial role. For the reasons articulated above, even though nothing on the face of the warrant specifically authorized Gonzalez to unlock the phone with defendant’s fingerprint, the warrant would have been reasonably understood to include this action, and thus the warrant was not so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely unreasonable. Finally, for similar reasons, the warrant did not fail to particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized such that Gonzalez could not reasonably presume it to be valid. The object of the search was clear: based on Jane Doe 1’s report of recent sexual abuse captured on defendant’s phone, police were to seize the phone and search it for evidence including images or videos of the abuse. In order to search the phone, unlocking it was necessary, a fact the probable cause statements clearly informed the magistrate of. Gonzalez’s affidavit listed in detail the information that indicated that evidence of defendant’s crimes would be found on the phone. Defendant does not assert that probable cause to support the search of the phone was lacking. If law enforcement officials committed any error, the error was limited to not specifically listing on the face of the warrant the need to use defendant’s fingerprint to unlock the phone. However, this matter was addressed in the affidavit and was incorporated by reference into the warrant. Under these facts, no deterrent purpose would be served by excluding the evidence, as Gonzalez and other law enforcement officials reasonably acted in objective good faith on the issuance of two electronic communications search warrants. (Leon, supra, 468 U.S. at p. 919.)