State v. Manning

Application of emergency exception to obtain cell phone records

The ACLU-NJ participated as amicus curiae at the New Jersey Supreme Court in a case that examined when the State could rely on claims of emergency to justify a warrantless search of cell phone records. In this case, the police obtained cell phone and location records from AT&T on a claim of exigency. However, because this was a routine murder investigation, the police could not meet their burden of showing that they could not have gotten a warrant. We asked the Court to apply a traditional exigency analysis and to clarify that the need for a warrant is paramount, only overcome in narrow circumstances.