Don’t Surrender Your Smart Phone
Getting arrested for a crime can cause a lot of thoughts to go shooting through your head. You try to remember where you were on a specific night, what you may have been doing, and whether or not you even know the person in question. If you were intoxicated or under the influence of drugs that night, you might not remember anything. But you know what does remember every call you made, every place you checked in, and every picture you ever took? Your phone.
Never Surrender Your Smart Phone
When you hire a Staten Island lawyer to represent you in your case, your smart phone could contain information that will exonerate you. On the other hand, your smart phone could also contain information that will seal your fate and send you to prison. If the police ask you to surrender your smart phone without a warrant, you should not try to obstruct justice.
What you should do is ask to see a lawyer until they either allow you to speak to a lawyer or forcibly remove your phone from your possession. Whether or not taking your phone from you is legal will be decided in court. Do not attempt to get your phone back by force. If you do give the police your smart phone, refuse to give the password to access it. In this way, you obeyed the officer’s initial commands, but refuse to obey any further commands without first talking to an attorney.
What You Can Do Instead Of Surrendering Your Smart Phone
If you decide to turn yourself in to the police, then leave your smart phone at home or with someone you trust. If the police never ask for the phone, your attorney will so make sure the phone is safe.
If you are being arrested in the field, request permission from the police to hand over your possessions to a friend who is with you. In most cases, the police will not allow you to do this. But if you are given permission, be sure your smart phone is one of the items you pass to your friend.
If the police execute a search warrant to arrest you at home, just leave your smart phone behind. Do not ask if you can retrieve it and do not make any motions to grab for it and put it in your pocket.
What is the Big Deal?
People seem to forget that their phones contain logs of every incoming and outgoing call they have received and made, every photo they have ever taken, and even information on places where they have been. When you go to a restaurant and your phone automatically checks in at that restaurant, that information is stored. The police can retrieve a lot of deleted information as well as information that is openly available on your phone, so anything you have done since you first activated that phone can be available.
When you are arrested, you do not have to surrender your smart phone unless the police have a warrant. Since you do not have to give up your phone, you should keep it and do everything you legally can to keep it out of the hands of the police.
