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60 Drake L. Rev. 429 (2011-2012)
Traffic Ticket Reasonable, Cell Phone Search Not: Applying the Search-Incident-to-Arrest Exception to the Cell Phone as Hybrid

handle is hein.journals/drklr60 and id is 433 raw text is: TRAFFIC TICKET REASONABLE, CELL PHONE SEARCH NOT: APPLYING THE SEARCH- INCIDENT-TO-ARREST EXCEPTION TO THE CELL PHONE AS HYBRID Eunice Park* TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction ........................................................................................... 431 II. The History of the Expectation of Privacy in Items That Can Be Permitted and Excluded from a Warrantless Search Incident to a V alid Custodial A rrest .................................................................. 433 A. The Fourth Amendment and Search-Incident-to-Arrest E xception ........................................................................................ 433 B. General Precedent Before Cell Phones ...................................... 434 III. The Disconnect Between the Law, Technology, and Use ................ 440 A. The Confusing Five-Point Spectrum Regarding Warrantless Cell Phone Searches Incident to a Valid Custodial Arrest ..... 441 1. Cell Phone as Container .......................................................... 442 a. Cell phone is a container ................................................. 442 b. Cell phone is not a container .......................................... 444 2. Relatedness to the Reason for Arrest ................................... 446 a. R elatedness required ....................................................... 446 b. Relatedness not required ................................................ 450 3. Need to Preserve Evidence ..................................................... 452 a. Evidence destruction risk ................................................ 452 b. No evidence destruction risk ........................................ 454 4. O ffi cer Safety ............................................................................ 456 5. Expectation of Privacy ............................................................. 458 * Assistant Professor of Lawyering Skills, Western State University College of Law. A special thank you to Professor Neil Gotanda, Professor Edith Warkentine, and John Lee, Esq., for their detailed and insightful comments, and to my former student, Jeff Guarrera, for his outstanding research assistance. The views expressed in this Article are the Author's own. I am grateful always to my parents and to my husband and children for their patience and support. I dedicate this Article to my mom, Kyung S. Park, and to the memory of my dad, Jong M. Park.