Document Type
Brief
Publication Date
11-12-2025
Publisher
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Language
en-US
Abstract
Today, nearly everyone relies on a cellphone. Many use their phones to store a wealth of private information, including conversations over text messages and emails; photographs of family, friends, pets, and joyous occasions; and confidential banking and medical records. The Supreme Court, therefore, regards a cellphone search as one that “typically expose[s] to the government far more than the most exhaustive search of a house.”
The Supreme Court also recognizes that despite the legal status of people subject to probation conditions, probationers still retain Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches. And this Court has held that probationers, who like almost everyone else in society, rely on cellphones, retain a “substantial” privacy interest in their cellphone data.
But when Plaintiff-Appellant Timothy Olmos attended a mandatory meeting with two probation officers, Defendants-Appellees Armida Prieto and Erwinn Hernandez searched Olmos’s cellphone without a warrant and without reasonable suspicion. In the middle of the meeting, Olmos received an unexpected call from an auto insurance agent. Olmos silenced the call to avoid disrupting the meeting. Then, Prieto and Hernandez demanded that Olmos surrender possession of his phone. Olmos complied. Indeed, he did not think he had a right to refuse and was afraid that discipline or retaliation might follow if he did not hand over his phone. Prieto and Hernandez proceeded to search, not through the cellphone’s call log, but rather through Olmos’s photo gallery. Prieto and Hernandez have never argued that they believed Olmos was violating a particular probation condition or that they had particularized suspicion that he was committing a crime.
The Fourth Amendment protects Olmos from unreasonable searches like the one conducted by Prieto and Hernandez. It is deeply rooted in our constitutional tradition that it is unreasonable for the government to “rummage” through personal property “in an unrestrained search” for evidence of wrongdoing. This Court should look askance at Defendants’ arguments claiming the authority to do so. When Prieto and Hernandez searched through Olmos’s photos without suspicion, these officers ignored Olmos’s reasonable expectation of privacy and violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Accordingly, this Court should reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment and remand for further proceedings.
Recommended Citation
Ciara Gerendas, Noah Goldstein, Eli O'Neal & Madeline H. Meth,
Replacement Opening Brief for Plaintiff-Appellant Timothy Olmos
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4133
