## Facts

- Anthony Granville, a high school student, was arrested for a Class C misdemeanor involving a disturbance on a school bus.
- During booking, officers seized and inventoried Granville’s cell phone and stored it in the jail property room.
- Later that day, a school resource officer (who did not participate in the arrest) received information that Granville had used the phone to photograph another student urinating in a school bathroom.
- Without obtaining a warrant, the officer retrieved the phone from the property room, powered it on (it was off), searched through its contents to locate a specific photograph, and printed a copy.
- Granville was charged with the state-jail felony of improper photography based on the photograph.
- Granville moved to suppress the cell-phone evidence as the product of an unconstitutional warrantless search.
- The trial court granted the motion, and the court of appeals affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether an arrestee retains a reasonable expectation of privacy in the digital contents of a cell phone that has been inventoried and stored in a jail property room.
2. Whether law enforcement may, without a warrant and absent exigent circumstances or another exception, activate and search the contents of such a phone for investigative purposes.

## Decision

- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the suppression order.
- The court held that Granville retained a legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of his cell phone despite its placement in the jail property room.
- The court rejected a categorical rule permitting warrantless searches of any property stored in a jail property room based solely on custody and probable cause.
- The officer’s conduct was an investigative search of digital contents, not a permissible inventory or booking procedure.
- Because no warrant was obtained and no exigent circumstances or other recognized exception was shown, the search violated the Fourth Amendment.

## Legal Principles

- Lawful seizure and inventory of an arrestee’s property for safekeeping does not, by itself, eliminate Fourth Amendment protection in the property’s private contents.
- A cell phone’s digital contents implicate substantial privacy interests and are not treated as equivalent to ordinary physical items for purposes of post-booking investigative searches.
- An inventory or booking procedure may justify taking custody and recording property, but it does not authorize exploratory searches of digital data for evidence.
- Absent a warrant or a recognized exception (such as exigent circumstances), police may not activate and search the contents of an inventoried cell phone held in jail property for investigative purposes.

## Conclusion

The court held that an arrestee does not lose Fourth Amendment privacy in the digital contents of an inventoried cell phone stored in jail property, and police therefore must obtain a warrant or establish a valid exception before activating and searching the phone for evidence.


State v. Granville, 423 S.W.3d 399 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014)