How Does One Make a Phone Call from Jail in the Age of No Memorization?

Twenty years ago, the “Contacts” app on the iPhone didn’t exist. iPhones themselves didn’t even exist. It was the age where you memorized your loved one’s phone numbers because there were no other alternatives. Flash forward to 2025, nearly one in three Americans do not have their emergency contact numbers memorized. This percentage will likely just get worse, considering that the older you are, the more likely you are to have somewhere between two and five phone numbers memorized. The younger you are, the more likely you have zero numbers memorized.

This isn’t much of an issue in everyday life, as you are likely glued to your phone anyway. But what happens if you are arrested and your phone gets taken away? What happens when you have no numbers memorized to make the one phone call that really matters?

Being able to make a phone call without having the number memorized all depends on the officers, the jail, and the local protocols. Since your belongings are confiscated after booking, it is up to the officers whether they will let you look up a phone number on your phone. However, making at least one phone call is a constitutional right in some states, like California. In others, like New York, it is not a constitutional right, but a privilege. It is important to note that a phone call to a lawyer is always allowed, as this is a constitutional right found in the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

If the officer lets you check your own phone for a number before it's taken away, then there is seemingly no problem. The problem arises when the officer himself checks the arrestee's phone, as this can constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment. In Riley v. California, the Supreme Court held that officers cannot search a cell phone under the search incident to arrest exception without obtaining a warrant due to the vast private information kept on a cell phone. However, the arrestee would be able to give consent, as established in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, which would allow an officer to unlock their cell phone and go through it to find a phone number. But where does that consent stop? It’s very possible that the temptation to find out more about the arrestee, and having their unlocked phone in the officer’s hands, leads to very murky, and possibly illegal, searches under the Fourth Amendment.

This developing legal issue has not yet been heavily litigated, but since iPhones are here to stay, it is likely this issue will make its way to our court system at some point. Local precincts should start creating a system to deal with this issue in the age of no memorization to avoid committing an illegal search. For example, before confiscating the arrestee’s phone, the officers can watch them look up the phone number they need so that they are able to make their phone call. In the same vein, prosecutors and defense lawyers should be aware of the legal implications of a phone search exceeding the scope consented to by the arrestee.