Defendants can be forced to turn over phone passcodes, N.J.’s highest court rules

New Jersey’s highest court ruled Monday that authorities can compel defendants to turn over their phone passcodes in order for them to retrieve information from the device through a search warrant.

The state Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling was a result of the case of Robert Andrews, a former Essex County Sheriff’s officer, who alleged it was unconstitutional to make him provide his cell phone passcode to authorities as they investigated him for aiding a man who was under investigation for drug trafficking. Authorities executed a search warrant on Andrews’ phones, but were not able to access information without the passcodes.

The majority of the state Supreme Court concurred with Justice Lee Solomon’s opinion that found “neither federal nor state protections against compelled disclosure shield Andrews’s passcodes.”

The opinion says that the lawfully issued search warrants, which Andrews did not challenge, gives the state “the right to the cellphones’ purportedly incriminating contents.”

The ruling now sets a precedent across the state that authorities have the ability to compel criminal defendants to disclose their cell phone passcodes in order to retrieve information from the device they were seeking to obtain with a search warrant, legal experts say.

Attorneys and advocates who argued forcing the disclosure of a defendant’s passcode was unconstitutional said they view the ruling as a blow to privacy and a defendant’s constitutional right to remain silent and not self-incriminate.

“(The ruling) is taking a stick of dynamite to that fundamental right and imploding it from within,” said Matt Adams, vice president of Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey.

In the dissenting opinion, authored by Justice Jaynee LaVecchia, the justice raises concerns that this an example of citizen’s right to privacy “constantly shrinking” and a “direct violation of (Andrews’) right not to testify against himself.”... (Read more)

Latest News