Washington v. Bowman (Majority and Concurrence)
Annotate this CaseAs cell phones made text messaging a ubiquitous form of communication, the Washington Supreme Court recognized that text message conversations constituted “a private affair protected by the state constitution from warrantless intrusion.” The Court in Washington v. Hinton, 319 P.3d 9 (2014), held that an individual whose text messages was unlawfully searched on an associate’s cell phone could challenge that search in a subsequent prosecution—rejecting the view in other states that any privacy interest in a text message was lost once the message was sent. In this case, the Supreme Court was asked to extend Hinton to prohibit law enforcement from using information obtained from the lawful, consensual search of a third party’s cell phone to set up a separate text message exchange on a different cell phone between Respondent Reece Bowman and an undercover agent posing as Bowman’s associate. Specifically, Bowman argued that both the search and the ruse violated his rights under article I, section 7 of the Washington State Constitution, as well as the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, by intruding on a private affair without authority of law. The Supreme Court rejected these arguments, holding that a cell phone owner’s voluntary consent to search text messages on their phone provides law enforcement with the authority of law necessary to justify intruding on an otherwise private affair. Further, the Court held that a subsequent police ruse using lawfully obtained information did not constitute a privacy invasion or trespass in violation of either our state constitution or the United States Constitution. The Court of Appeals’ judgment was reversed and Bowman’s conviction reinstated.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.