the People of the State of Colorado v. Shaun R. Davis

Tags: 2010s Amendment IV Case Law Criminal Law Passcode Searches and Seizures

Published: April 2019

Abstract: In Colorado v. Davis, the Colorado Supreme Court held that using a passcode given to police officers to execute a search warrant on a smartphone did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In this case, a criminal defendant had given his cellphone passcode to police officers during his arrest so they could call his girlfriend. Later, after law enforcement received a warrant to search the phone, the passcode was used to search the phone. The court reasoned that the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his passcode once he disclosed it to the police officers.