Compelling a suspect to unlock a smartphone doesn't violate Fifth Amendment rights, New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled today (via
NorthJersey.com), adding a new argument to the ongoing debate on whether those arrested can be forced to unlock their devices with biometrics or passcodes.
Courts around the United States have been split on the issue, with some determining that suspects cannot be forced to unlock an iPhone, while others have said it's not a rights violation. Most of these arguments have focused on biometric smartphone unlocking methods like Touch ID and Face ID, but New Jersey says that a criminal defendant can be forced to provide a passcode.
In the NJ case, prosecutors wanted access to two iPhones owned by former Essex County sheriff Robert Andrews, accused of secretly working with a street gang. Andrews argued that requiring him to provide a passcode would be a violation of his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, but the court rejected the argument and said that it only applies when the accused is "compelled to make a testimonial communication that is incriminating."
Fifth Amendment rights do not protect suspects from producing documents to use as evidence in cases, and the court considered the iPhone's text and phone call content to be documents.
The court, which was split on the decision 4 to 3, said that even if the passcodes were considered testimony, there was already evidence that there were texts and telephone exchanges between the sheriff and an alleged drug dealer, enacting a "foregone conclusion exception" to the Fifth Amendment because the state already knows about the texts. By providing the passcodes, Andrews would not be providing information the government is not already aware of. The full ruling with additional context is available from the NJ courts website [
PDF].Andrews' attorney, Charles Sciarra, called the court's ruling a "major defeat to the United States Constitution."The New Jersey Supreme Court ruling could have an impact on future court cases involving locked smartphones, and courts will continue to come to different conclusions on the issue of smartphone unlocking until the United States Supreme Court steps in and clarifies how constitutional rights and precedents apply to new technologies.
Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our
Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Article Link:
Suspects Can Be Forced to Provide Smartphone Passcodes, Rules New Jersey Supreme Court