Does a prisoner have a expectation of privacy in his cell phone

Hey guys, it's attorney Anthony Bandiero. Here, bring you another roadside chat. And this question comes from an officer in Nevada, and actually, he's a corrections officer in prison. And he brought a great a great scenario. Do prisoners have a reasonable expectation of privacy in cell phones? Right? So the scenario is an officer, you know, in prison, found a cell phone, searched it without a warrant, and, you know, saw some information that helped prove that the prisoner knew, you know, that he had it, you know, I guess he's trying to say, Oh, I have nothing to do with that cell phone. But, you know, the evidence inside the phone shows that he made calls to people associated with him and so forth. Alright. So normally, the prison would get a search warrant. But the question for us today is, do you need one? And the answer is no. Right? The answer is no. And the reason why is because the prisoner knows or should know that they cannot have that cell phone. Clearly, it's contraband, right. All the rules, say it no cell phones, they know or should know that that phone is absolutely prohibited in that facility. So, therefore, when they brought it in somehow or obtained it, they're possessing contraband. And generally speaking, a person does not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in contraband. A good example of that is a Supreme Court case called Illinois versus Kabbalists, where the Supreme Court said that a dog sniff in and of itself is not a Fourth Amendment search if it is trained to detect contraband, right. So in that case, the canine was run around a vehicle during a traffic stop, it alerted to the presence of contraband, and a search ensued on the probable cause. And Kabbalists lost that case because again, the dog is not searching under the Fourth Amendment. Well, it's the same concept applies here. When officers in the prison facility search contraband, it's not a search because it doesn't implicate the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. This is not even a search, right? Because it doesn't implicate it's not a protected item. Let me just give you an example from a case called United States versus bash. I have the Westlaw citation. It's 2021, w l 3207252. So again, 2000, what are 2021 WL that sounds for Westlaw, three to 07252. It's out of the Eastern Eastern District of California, it was decided actually very recently, July 29, 2029. So here's a case where corrections officers search a cell p