Wash. state Supreme Court upholds privacy rights on text messages, tosses out 2 drug convictions

Source: Seattle Times

In two separate but parallel 5-4 decisions, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday (February 27) that text messages are private and protected from warrantless searches by police, even when a sender can’t be sure who reads a text after it is sent.

The rulings are part of a broader, national trend upholding privacy rights for cellphones and the content stored on them.

The decisions revolve around the arrest of two Cowlitz County men in 2009 by Longview police after a third man, Daniel Lee, was arrested for possession of heroin. Police seized Lee’s cellphone and without his consent, a detective read incoming messages on the phone from Shawn Hinton and Jonathan Roden — and then, posing as Lee, arranged to meet the men to sell them drugs.

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