Justices consider legality of cellphone seizure and nine‑month delay to extract photos in Carlton appeal

The Supreme Judicial Court considered whether police lawfully seized and later searched Michael Carlton’s cellphone and whether a lengthy delay in extracting photographs from the device requires suppression. Defense attorney Richard Hartquist argued the initial seizure was warrantless and that detectives exceeded the scope of their authority by ultimately reviewing some 31,000 images on the phone after obtaining a second warrant for contents. "They went through the entire cell phone and they found 31,000 pictures," Hartquist said, characterizing the later production of photographs as beyond what police initially sought and arguing the nine‑month delay between seizure and extraction was prejudicial. Hartquist emphasized that the detectives initially said they sought a photograph of a white Nike Air Max T‑shirt that had…