Riley v. CA Summary PDF

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Summary of Riley v. CA court case...

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The case that I decided to research was Riley v. California, which is about a gang member named David Leon Riley who was found to be linked to a gang shooting and will serve fifteen years to life in prison. His case was argued on Tuesday, April 29, 2014, and was decided on Wednesday, June 25, 2014. Riley was charged on three different accounts: driving with an expired license, possession of fire arms at the time of arrest, and involvement in a gang-affiliated shooting. The Roberts Court made the decision, and there were nine votes that were for Riley to go to prison and zero votes against Riley going to prison. In this court case, the fourth amendment was being explored was the Fourth Amendment, which does not allow for search and seizures with a probable cause or a warrant. The primary issue with this court case was that the information about the gang-affiliated crimes was obtained through a search of Riley’s cell phone, which was conducted without a warrant. In several instances, searches without warrants were allowed if it were an emergency. Also, the information that was gathered from Riley’s cell phone could have been obtained from “cloud computing,” which is when the information is taken through the cloud server, rather than directly from the cell phone. Cell phones are devices to be considered as “mini computers” that harbor information that is personal to the person who is arrested. The first side to the argument is that the information obtained without a warrant should not be able to be used in order to reach a court decision. The other side of the argument it that searches conducted without warrants can be man to protect the arresting officer and to make sure that evidence will not be destroyed. This case explores the Fourth Amendment pertaining to technologies, like cell phones, that can contain information great enough to incriminate a man. This brings up revisions within the Constitution because it needs to specifically address problems arising from the technological advances of our time....