Legal Tech • July/August 2026

A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy

Shooting victim did not intend to abandon his dropped phone and its data.

Written by Pierre Grosdidier

Fresh out of jail, alleged recidivist drug dealer Dontae Lamont Hunt dropped his black iPhone when a gunman shot him five times as he walked and talked outside.1 Hunt survived but apparently made no subsequent effort to reclaim his overlooked device. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit refused to apply the abandonment doctrine, which holds that a person who intentionally discards property forfeits his reasonable expectation of privacy in that property and consequently waives any Fourth Amendment challenge to its search. Importantly, the court also held that trial courts must analyze a person’s intent to abandon a digital device separately from that person’s intent to abandon its stored data.2

Authorities seized Hunt’s white iPhone at the hospital and gave him a receipt after he refused to cooperate with their investigation. They also found the black iPhone in bushes near the crime scene. Authorities preserved the device as evidence even though its nexus to the shooting was uncertain. The device remained unclaimed. Two years later, another investigation into an unrelated overdose death brought Hunt back to authorities’ attention and revived their interest in the black iPhone. Authorities eventually arrested Hunt in a drug raid. Armed with a warrant, they searched the black iPhone and found incriminating evidence of his illicit drug dealings. They charged Hunt based in part on evidence found in the black iPhone.3

Hunt moved at trial to suppress the black iPhone’s digital evidence because of the device’s warrantless seizure. The government argued that Hunt had abandoned his iPhone and thus lacked standing to make this argument. The trial court agreed and denied Hunt’s motion, but the court of appeals reversed on this point.4

The court first held that, in light of the voluminous private information kept in digital devices, courts should separately analyze a person’s intent to abandon a device and its stored data.5 The court analogized the device-data dichotomy with that of a house key and a home, calling it “the closest pre-digital functional analogue to the cell phone and its data.”6 A lost house key does not automatically imply an invitation to enter a person’s home. Courts should, therefore, perform separate fact-specific analyses of a person’s intent to abandon a device and its data, and not instinctively fuse the two.7

Here, the court held, the trial court erroneously applied the abandonment doctrine. Intent to abandon is analyzed under a “totality of the circumstances” test, which considers “‘words, acts or other objective indications, [the] person has relinquished a reasonable expectation of privacy in the property at the time of the search or seizure.’” Hunt dropped his iPhone in the mayhem of the shooting. His priority was to flee and seek help, not find the iPhone. Hunt arguably made no later effort to find his iPhone or to retrieve it from authorities. But the iPhone was concealed by bushes and not in plain sight. Moreover, Hunt was amnesic about the shooting. He might not have remembered that he was on the phone when he was shot. He also might not have known that authorities had his iPhone. They gave him a receipt after they seized his white iPhone, and he might have reasonably expected equal treatment for his black iPhone. Finally, Hunt might have reasonably believed that someone other than the authorities had taken the valuable iPhone. Hunt, therefore, had standing for his Fourth Amendment challenge. Because the court held that Hunt had not abandoned his iPhone, it saw no need to analyze whether he had abandoned its stored data. The court nonetheless held that authorities reasonably secured the black iPhone and searched it with a proper warrant, and it affirmed a denial to the motion to suppress.8

Notes
1. United States v. Hunt, No. 23-2342, 2025 WL 2472501, at *1 (9th Cir. Aug. 27, 2025) (unpublished mem. op.); see also United States v. Hunt, 153 F.4th 858, 862 (9th Cir. 2025).
2. Id. at 861-62.
3. Id. at 862-63. The government failed to unlock the white iPhone; see United States v. Hunt, No. 3:18-cr-00475-IM, 2022 WL 1153985, at *2 (D. Or. Apr. 19,
2022).
4. Hunt, 153 F.4th at 865.
5. Id. at 861.
6. Id. at 866-67 (citing Orin Kerr, The Digital Fourth Amendment 65 (2025)).
7. Id. at 867.
8. Id. at 866-68.

PIERRE GROSDIDIERPIERRE GROSDIDIER is a litigation attorney in Houston. He is certified in construction law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Prior to practicing law, Grosdidier worked in the process control industry. He holds a Ph.D. from Caltech and a J.D. from the University of Texas. Grosdidier is a member of the State Bar of Texas and the Texas Bar College, a fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and the American Bar Foundation, and a registered P.E. in Texas (inactive). He was chair of the State Bar of Texas Computer & Technology Section for 2022-2023. Grosdidier served as medium section representative to the State Bar of Texas (2023-2026) and currently serves as a director to the State Bar of Texas (2026-2029).