Ramos

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO SUPPRESS EVIDENCE AS FRUIT OF AN ILLEGAL SEARCH

This case presents the question whether the recent Supreme Court case of Riley v. California, — U.S. —, 134 S.Ct. 2473 , 189 L.Ed.2d 430 (2014), generally requiring law enforcement to obtain a search warrant before accessing contents of a cell phone taken from an arrestee, applies to the manual border search of a cell phone taken from a drug courier following his arrest. Defendant, Clemente Ramos, was arrested at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and charged with importation of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 952 , 960. He contends any such search after an arrest and the confiscation of contraband, methamphetamine in this case, loses its character as a border search, and thereby becomes an investigatory search, i.e., a search to gather evidence of the crime. Under circumstances such as these, Defendant contends, Riley requires the issuance of a search warrant to manually search the phone for text and phone call history even while the arrestee and the phone are still situated at the border. The government submits the search of Defendant’s cell phone was a valid border search under existing…