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TX12: Handing over phone to "can I look at your cell phone?" was consent to look at photos

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Officers were told that defendant was communicating with a 14 year old girl, and they went to talk to him. They asked if they could look at his cell phone, and he turned it over. One officer hit the camera button and looked at the photographs on it. Defendant consented to a search of the cell phone. Lemons v. State, 2009 Tex. App. LEXIS 3238 (Tex. App.–Tyler May 13, 2009): We have reviewed the record as it pertains to Appellant's giving consent. The epicenter of our inquiry is Thornhill's request to Appellant that he be allowed to examine Appellant's cellular telephone and Appellant's nonverbal response of simply handing his cellular telephone to Thornhill. There is no indication from the record that would allow a reasonable person to conclude that Appellant intended to shape the confines of his forthcoming consent by the subject matter of the conversation between him and Thornhill in the moments preceding Appellant's relinquishment of his cellular telephone to Thornhill...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on May 19, 2009 (boomark / email).