Woman shot in parking lot during football game

[EEllis]

I wish Cotton would chime in and say if its legal or not. No one has posted any law yet saying that phones and cameras can be seized without a warrant. If it was legal then why was he given the phone back after having an attorney call and he said it was illegal? Im inclined to believe a lawyer who has studied and practiced law for 20yrs more so than anyone else without proof.

What is the lawyer going to say? A lawyer argues a position they do not defines law. A court of law would have to rule before one could say it was illegal that's why courts are called "Finders of Fact". It goes without saying that evidence can obviously be seized with warrant or without if there are exigent circumstances. In the case of a phone the police would argue there were exigent circumstances and it would be up to a court to decide if the court felt that to be true or not. It's just not black and white and unless the lawyer was physic then he cannot know which way the court will rule. Now he can use his experience with the court and knowledge of case law to develop an opinion on how he believes the court should and will rule but he is at best giving his opinion and even if he knows it to be false, can definitely make claims that something is otherwise to advocate for his client. Now most of the law in this area is in criminal cases where the property seized belongs to the suspect and is used against them. Evidence in possession of a third party is much sparser since there is little reason for someone to complain when the evidence is not being used against them and the person who it is being used against has no basis to object. That being said right now court rulings are trending to allowing the seizure of phones if law enforcement believes there is evidence of a crime on them. They have to have PC enough to support a warrant at the time of seizure and in most cases get a warrant before viewing. It's a kind of extension of the Carroll rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_v._United_States which allowed vehical searches without warrant under some circumstances. Not every court has agreed and there is limited appellate rulings of course but the trend is clear. On the first page I put a link to where the ACLU sued the DC police for detaining a photographer. Some how from that stop came a negotiated policy that allows the warrantless seizure of cell phones. Mind you it isn't that they can grab any cell phone. They have listed procedures and this hoop and that hoop to jump thru, but in the end they can seize a phone and the ACLU signed off on it. Now I like any reasonable person have some issues with the ACLU and I wont go into now. The idea tho that they would negotiate such a settlement if they didn't think think courts were allowing such things is pretty thin. While I think in the op the PC sounds thin we weren't there and with court rulings being what they aare on the subject it is not unreasonable for a police officer to believe he is acting in good faith when seizing a phone. Now there could be a ruling by a court later that makes this type of seizure illegal but right now there is more than enough grey area to make it impossible to know for sure thus allowing law enforcement to do so.

[anygunanywhere]

I guess there are a lot more exigent circumstances nowadays than there used to be. Cell phone cameras must be all eaten up with exigence. Must make LEOs just want to grab them for evidence when they see them. Everyone buys phones just so they can photograph evidence, dontchaknow.

Anygunanywhere