United States v. LaCosta-Franco
Brief Details
- Case No.: 26-2028
- Brief Filed: September 03, 2026
- Jurisdiction: 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals
Key Topics in the Brief
Briefs
Prior Decision
Decision below United States v. LaCosta-Franco, 828 F. Supp. 3d 543 (E.D. Pa. 2026)
The government appeals the district court’s suppression of evidence obtained from a cell phone search. Amici’s brief offers a complementary analysis focused on the heightened privacy interests implicated by modern cell phones and the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that a warrant application establish a case-specific nexus between the phone to be searched and the particular crime under investigation. As Riley v. California recognized, a cell phone contains an extraordinary quantity and variety of private information, allowing the government to reconstruct an individual’s personal life in ways far beyond traditional physical searches. That reality makes rigorous enforcement of the nexus requirement particularly important. The brief explains that a warrant to search a cell phone cannot rest on generalized assumptions that phones contain evidence of crime, the ubiquitous use of phones in modern life, an officer’s conclusory assertion that the phone will likely contain pertinent information, or boilerplate statements about how criminals use cell phones. Nor can an officer’s training and experience substitute for case-specific evidentiary facts connecting the particular device to the alleged offense. Instead, the warrant application must provide facts establishing a concrete link between the cell phone and the crime under investigation, including facts supporting a reasonable expectation that the evidence sought will be found in the particular electronic location to be searched.
The brief further emphasizes that this requirement applies even where a defendant possessed a phone during an alleged offense or where it might seem generally plausible that the phone contains relevant evidence. Allowing such generalized inferences would effectively permit searches of the phones of anyone suspected of participating in an offense, regardless of whether the phone was actually used in connection with the crime, undermining Riley’s recognition of the uniquely invasive nature of digital searches. The brief therefore urges the Third Circuit to affirm the district court and hold that cell phone warrants must be supported by case-specific facts establishing probable cause to believe that particular evidence of the crime under investigation will be found on the device.
Author(s)
Laura Moraff (counsel of record), Nathan Freed Wessler, and Brett Max Kaufman, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, NY; Andrew Crocker, Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, CA; Witold J. Walczak, ACLU of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, PA; Michael Price, Litigation Director, Fourth Amendment Center, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Washington, DC; Lisa Mathewson, Third Circuit Vice-Chair, NACDL Amicus Committee, Philadelphia, PA.
