In United States v. Garay --- F.3d ---, No. 18-50054 (9th Cir. 2019), the Court affirmed the defendant's conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The issue on appeal was the denial of the defendant's motion to suppress evidence
found as a result of the search of his cell phone, seized from
his rental car after a high-speed chase.
First, the Court sidestepped the issue of Fourth Amendment standing: "The Supreme Court recently clarified in Byrd that Fourth
Amendment standing, unlike Article III standing in the civil
context, is 'not a jurisdictional question and hence need not
be addressed before addressing other aspects of the merits of
a Fourth Amendment claim.' 138 S. Ct. at 1530. We
conclude that the search and seizure of Garay’s cell phone
were both reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
Accordingly, we need not decide whether Garay abandoned
all reasonable expectation of privacy in the cell phone."
Second, the Court held,"the seizure of
Garay’s cell phone was justified as part of an inventory
search in preparation for the car’s towing."
Further: "administrative errors should not, on their own, invalidate
inventory searches: 'There must be something else; something to suggest the police raised ‘the inventory-search
banner in an after-the-fact attempt to justify’ a simple
investigatory search for incriminating evidence.'"
The Court continued: "we find no reason to conclude that the
inventory search was used to rummage for evidence. Given
the circumstances leading up to the search, the officers no
doubt expected to find evidence of criminal activity inside the
vehicle. But that expectation would not invalidate an
otherwise reasonable inventory search."
Finally, the Court concluded the subsequent warrants to search the cell phone were supported by probable cause. "We have
long held that affiants seeking a warrant may state
conclusions based on training."
