Amicus Brief: Particularity Required in Cell Phone Search Warrants

Attorney Wood and a team from Goodwin Procter drafted an amicus brief in Commonwealth v. Keown on behalf of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers advancing the cutting edge argument that, when seeking a warrant to search a cell phone, law enforcement must comply with the Fourth Amendment's requirement to "particularly describ[e] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Police should not have carte blanche to sift through people's digital lives. They must limit their searches to inquiries reasonably designed to discover specific evidence of a particular crime. Joining the brief were the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Committee for Public Counsel Services. Read the brief on our website here or on the Supreme Judicial Court's website here.