How Long Can Police Hold Your Phone Before a Warrant? Solis and Diaz

On August 12, 2026, the Supreme Judicial Court decided two cases together, Commonwealth v. Solis, SJC-13823, and Commonwealth v. Diaz, SJC-13835 (Mass. Aug. 12, 2026), and answered a question that recurs in nearly every case involving a cell phone: how long may the police keep a lawfully seized phone before they apply for a warrant to search its contents. The Court held that delays of 109 days in one case and 123 days in the other did not make the continued seizures unreasonable under art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Both trial court orders suppressing the phone evidence were reversed. The decision is important for anyone whose phone was taken at the time of arrest, and it changes how a defense motion on this issue must be framed.

The Question Before the Court

Neither defendant disputed that the police had lawfully seized his phone at the time of arrest. The contested question was whether the delay in seeking a search warrant turned an initially lawful seizure into an unreasonable one. Article 14 guarantees that every person is secure from unreasonable searches and seizures of his person, houses, papers, and possessions. As the Court reaffirmed, a seizure that is reasonable at its inception can become unreasonable because of its duration. The issue was where that line falls when the item held is a modern smartphone.

What Happened in the Two Cases

In the Solis case, Chelsea police seized a phone incident to an arrest for offenses involving the sexual exploitation of a child. The detective applied for a warrant to search the phone 109 days later. In the Diaz case, police seized a phone incident to an arrest for dissemination of matter harmful to a minor under G. L. c. 272, § 28, and applied for the search warrant 123 days later. In both cases, Superior Court judges allowed the motions to suppress, relying on Commonwealth v. White, 475 Mass. 583 (2016), where the Court had held that a sixty-eight day delay in obtaining a warrant to search a phone was unreasonable on the facts presented there. A divided Appeals Court affirmed suppression in the Diaz case, reported at Commonwealth v. Diaz, No. 23-P-1462 (Mass. App. Ct. Aug. 29, 2025). The SJC took both cases and reversed.

The Balancing Test Under White

The Court declined to adopt any fixed number of days. White rejected a bright-line temporal rule and instead requires courts to balance the defendant’s possessory interest in the seized device against the Commonwealth’s justification for continuing to hold it, under the totality of the circumstances. The fact that the delays in Solis and Diaz exceeded the sixty-eight days in White did not decide the outcome. The Court examined three considerations: the strength of the defendant’s possessory interest in the phone, the extent of the government’s intrusion on that interest, and the strength of the Commonwealth’s justification for retaining the device.

On the possessory side, the Court recognized that a smartphone is different in kind from other belongings, because it stores communications, financial data, location history, and photographs. See Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014). A person’s interest in a smartphone is generally substantial. That interest can be reduced, however, by the specific facts. Relevant circumstances include whether the defendant ever asked for the phone back, whether the record shows a concrete need for the device, the strength of the ownership claim, and whether the defendant owned another phone with equivalent function.

The Factors That Decided Solis and Diaz

Three points moved the balance toward the Commonwealth in both cases. First, the police had probable cause to seize each phone, which the Court treated as a key factor. Second, each phone carried evidentiary value independent of its digital contents, because the phone itself was alleged to be an instrumentality of the offense and could be identified by the victim at trial. A device with independent evidentiary value may be retained as trial evidence regardless of what a later search reveals. Third, neither defendant asked for the return of his phone, and neither offered evidence that the phone held any particular importance to him, which reduced the weight of the possessory interest.

The Court did not excuse the delay. It criticized the detective’s admission that the warrant application had been placed on the “back burner,” and it repeated that generalized workload does not justify delay. The controlling point is that a lack of diligence does not end the inquiry when other circumstances give the Commonwealth a continuing, case-specific basis to hold the device. The Court closed with a warning that nothing in the opinion should be read to condone delay, and that art. 14 requires applications to search digital devices to be treated as a priority. The holding was expressly narrow, resting on the combination of probable cause, independent evidentiary value, serious offenses, and diminished possessory interests.

The Court also declined to follow the federal approach that treats a phone’s independent evidentiary value as making any delay immaterial. Under art. 14, evidentiary value strengthens the Commonwealth’s interest but does not permit unlimited delay in every case. That refusal preserves the diligence argument for the defense in Massachusetts.

What the Decision Means for a Motion to Suppress

The Court’s reasoning shows defense counsel how to build the record that the balancing test requires. The possessory interest is not presumed to be strong; it must be established. A defendant who wants that interest to carry weight should request the return of the phone, in writing, and should document a concrete need for the device and its personal significance. That record starts early, at the first appearance in court, and not on the eve of the hearing. The defense should also press the diligence question, because the Court reaffirmed that investigative workload alone does not justify a lapse and that the Commonwealth must identify warrant-specific reasons for the time it took. These issues are litigated through the motion to suppress under Article 14, and they build on the rules governing digital search warrants in Massachusetts. Related questions about passcodes, consent, and the scope of a phone search are addressed in the firm’s phone and computer search FAQs.

The Bottom Line for a Pending Case

The lawful seizure of a phone at arrest is only the beginning, and the length of time the police hold the device before seeking a warrant remains a live constitutional issue. After Solis and Diaz, the outcome turns on the full set of facts rather than the number of days alone. A defendant who preserved a demand for the phone, who can show the device mattered to daily life, and who can expose an unexplained lapse in the warrant application stands in a materially stronger position than the defendants in these two cases. The question arises at every stage of the Massachusetts criminal process, from the seizure at arrest through the hearing on the motion. Attorney Serpa reviews the seizure record and the warrant timeline in every case involving a phone or computer to determine whether a motion to suppress should be filed.