The People, Plaintiff and Respondent v. Gregory Diaz, Defendant and Appellant — Kennard, J., Concurring

Summary

Justice Kennard concurred in affirming the Court of Appeal because controlling federal precedent required treating a mobile phone carried by a lawfully arrested suspect as an item immediately associated with the arrestee and therefore searchable incident to arrest without a warrant, even after delay. She emphasized that California courts must apply federal Fourth Amendment law and cannot independently narrow directly applicable United States Supreme Court precedent. Justice Werdegar, dissenting, would have required a warrant for searching stored mobile-phone data absent exigency because electronic data implicates substantially greater informational privacy interests.