Facebook and the 4th Amendment

Facebook Records are Protected by the 4th Amendment

Larry Young v State 4D2023-1056 – Facebook Messages are Protected by the 4th Amendment

Recently the 4th DCA clearly established that your private messages to your friends and family on facebook are clearly protected by the 4th Amendment of the Constitution. Saying that Facebook Messages are Protected by the 4th Amendment may sound simple enough, and it may sound like common sense, but common sense and simplicity takes time and effort to become clear law in Florida, and the case recently written in the 4th DCA of Florida provides insight into how this came about and why.

As many cases do, this point of law begins with a terrible incident that involves police conduct and how they go about collecting evidence following the incident. The case revolves around a tragic occurrence in which a young girl was killed by a stray bullet during an altercation involving Mr. Larry Young’s girlfriend.

Young’s girlfriend, Keosha Carn, had a confrontation with her aunt that led to threats of violence. After Young arrived at the scene, shots were fired, resulting in the girl’s death. Witnesses identified Young as the shooter, although he denied involvement.

The police initially sought a warrant to access Young’s Facebook account but were unable to establish probable cause, leading to the suppression of those records. Subsequently, law enforcement accessed Facebook records through a previous unrelated warrant concerning retail theft, finding evidence that linked Young to the shooting.

Young’s defense argued that this access constituted an illegal search since the detective did not obtain a new warrant for the homicide investigation. The state countered that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule should apply, asserting that the detective believed his actions were lawful.

The trial court, despite acknowledging the violation of Young’s Fourth Amendment rights, upheld the evidence under the good-faith exception. Young was ultimately convicted of lesser charges and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The appeal focuses on the reasonable expectation of privacy regarding social media accounts and the scope of the search flowing from a warrant. Citing established case law, the court concluded that individuals have a strong expectation of privacy in their Facebook messages, similar to that of cell phone data. The key section of the opinion is quoted here:

Although the search at issue was of a Facebook account, the same privacy concerns apply because the detective garnered the evidence at issue through appellant’s private messages, which are analogous to a cell phone’s text messages. Several federal courts have recognized a reasonable expectation of privacy in a person’s private social media content. See United States v. Zelaya-Veliz, 94 F.4th 321, 333 (4th Cir. 2024) (“Most federal courts to rule on the issue have agreed that Facebook and other social media users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in content that they exclude from public access, such as private messages.”); United States v. Chavez, 423 F. Supp. 3d 194, 205 (W.D.N.C. 2019) (“Defendant manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in his nonpublic Facebook content that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.”); United States v. Bledsoe, 630 F. Supp. 3d 1, 18 (D.D.C. 2022) (finding the “weight of persuasive authority hold[s] that non-public content held on social media accounts is protected under the Fourth Amendment” and citing cases)

As such, the detective’s warrantless search violated the Fourth Amendment.

That didn’t end the analysis however, and the Court went on to determine if the police had a “good faith” exception to the warrantless search. 

Good-Faith Exception Analysis:

The State argued that the detective acted in good faith because there was no binding precedent requiring a second warrant for the search. However, the court clarified that lack of precedent does not equate to good faith.

The court referenced Hughes (People v. Hughes, 981 N.W.2d 182, 192 (Mich. Ct. App. 2021), rev den., 970 N.W.2d 337 (Mich. 2022), where a similar situation led to the conclusion that an officer’s search must remain consistent with the scope of the original warrant. The court emphasized that allowing the good-faith exception in this case would undermine the Fourth Amendment’s protections, potentially encouraging law enforcement to bypass warrant requirements in unclear legal situations.

Two things are clear that the public should know, one, when you privately message on facebook a record is being made and kept of your private conversation. Secondly, that the police and law enforcement will go to great lengths to get your messages when you’ve been accused of a crime. In their zeal to prosecute crime the government will try to get around the protections of law that we all share, and it takes dedicated lawyers and a skilled defense to point it out. 

In the end the conviction was reversed, and the lesson to the State of Florida is clear, in the absence of clear law allowing a search, get a warrant. 

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