Tuesday, March 17, 2026
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Good-Faith Exception to Warrant Necessity Applied to Search of Cellphone—C.A.
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Suppression of the fruits of a warrantless search of cellphone was not required where the device had belonged to a man who had been slain and police officers believed that the decedent’s mother now owned the instrument and that her consent sufficed. the Sixth District Court of Appeal has held.
The California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“CalECPA”), codified at Penal Code §1546 et seq., does not dictate a contrary result, Presiding Justice Mary J. Greenwood said in Friday’s opinion.
That 2015 legislation provides that, subject to exceptions “a government entity shall not…[a]ccess electronic device information by means of physical interaction or electronic communication with the electronic device.” It specifies that access is permissible “[w]ith the specific consent of the authorized possessor of the device.”
Armed Robbery
Suppression was sought by Milo William Anderson and Edward Lee Allen Jr. who committed an armed robbery in the garage of a home. A short time later, the dead body of a member of their gang, Tyrone Lampley, was found near the crime scene.
With the consent of the decedent’s mother, officers searched the content of Lampley’s cellphone. It implicated Anderson and Allen in the robbery and led to further evidence against them.
A judge denied their suppression motions, they each pled no contest; they appealed, arguing that the motion should have been granted because the mother was not the “authorized possessor.” Whether she was or not need not be decided, Greenwood said, declaring:
“Instead, the good faith exception to the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule applies to CalECPA violations.”
She went on to say:
“[W]e conclude that even assuming Lampley’s mother was not the authorized possessor of the phone as defined by CalECPA, the prosecution demonstrated that law enforcement had an objectively reasonable belief Lampley’s mother could consent to the search, and officers acted in good faith by relying on her consent to search the phone. Thus, suppression of the evidence obtained from the phone was not required.”
The jurist explained:
“When the officer obtained Lampley’s mother’s consent to search the phone, he informed Lampley’s mother that Lampley was deceased. Because Lampley had died, he was no longer the authorized possessor of the phone. At that point, law enforcement acted in objective good faith in believing Lampley’s mother as Lampley’s ‘next of kin’ was an authorized possessor of the phone. Law enforcement understood Lampley’s mother to be Lampley’s ‘next of kin,’ and they later released other personal property of Lampley to Lampley’s mother. Nothing in the appellate record indicates anyone else besides Lampley’s mother had a stronger claim to possession of the phone.”
Deterrence Rationale
She continued:
“Any deterrence rationale does not support suppressing the evidence in situations where law enforcement reasonably believes a family member is the authorized possessor of a deceased person’s electronic device. In addition, as the Attorney General notes, no case law existed concerning the definition of ‘authorized possessor’ at the time law enforcement obtained consent to search the phone, and nothing in the statutory definition should have caused law enforcement to believe Lampley’s mother was not authorized to consent to the phone’s search.”
The case is People v. Anderson, 2025 S.O.S. 681.
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