muller-motion-to-suppress

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place searched or items seized. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 133-134 (1978). The
California Supreme Court has indicated that “mention of ‘standing’ should be avoided
when analyzing a Fourth Amendment claim,” and noted that the United States Supreme
Court has largely abandoned the use of the word and, instead, used the term “reasonable
expectation of privacy.” People v. Ayala, 23 Cal. 4th 225, 254 n.3 (2000).
The United States Supreme Court has recently emphasized the importance of
constitutional protection to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures of a person’s
cellular phone and found that “[i]t is no exaggeration to say that many of the more than
90% of American adults who own a cell phone keep on their person a digital record of
nearly every aspect of their lives—from the mundane to the intimate. (Citation) Allowing
the police to scrutinize such records on a routine basis is quite different from allowing
them to search a personal item or two in the occasional case.” Riley v. California, 134 S.
Ct. 2473 (2014). “Indeed, a cell phone search would typically expose to the government
far more than the most exhaustive search of a house: A phone not only contains in digital
form many sensitive records previously found in the home; it also contains a broad array
of private information never found in a home in any form”. Id. at 2491. Every person
who uses a cell phone has an expectation of privacy with respect to that item. Mr. Muller
is no different. The reports indicate that Joyce and John Zarback indicated that they paid
the bill, but the phone belonged to Mr. Muller. Therefore, he had an expectation of
privacy with respect to that phone.
In People v. Shepherd, 23 Cal. App. 4th 825, 828–829 (1994), the court noted that
“[A]n important consideration in evaluating a privacy interest is whether a person has
taken normal precautions to maintain his or her privacy.” The phone was obviously not
left at the Yen residence on purpose by the intruder. The intruder/burglar left running as
quickly as possible, right out the back door while the screaming, yelling and the 911 call
was occurring. Moreover, the phone had a locking personal code. Phones can be
programmed either to have a pass code or not have a pass code. That pass code is no
People v. Muller
Defendant’s Motion to Suppress Evidence 8