Of course, it's sad it has to come to this, as this is effectively a warrantless search.
I’m not sure how much it matters that the suspect was on parole though.
This guy's parole terms included his phone could be searched so no need for a new warrant to search it.
If your password must be divulged from you with forced complicity, then the complicity is self-incriminating; the constitution forbids this.
As an actual sidestep, you could be legally obliged to provide your password to a third-party computer; the current legal hiccup (although not in issue in practice) is to make your password itself incriminating.
(hypothetically in minecraft)
I don't understand how this is a sidestep: could you expand?
In that particular case, even the accused acknowledge the existence of the evidence; whether this is the nuance that allows compulsion via force is the crux of the matter.
(Of course, if it was really a foregone conclusion then the question remains why they needed access to that evidence)
If the crux is literally that his compulsion is moot to the establishment of the evidence, then it both begs the question you had mentioned - why is it needed - and raises the obvious comparison of a murderer who has confessed to his crimes being compelled to divulge the location of a body.
In that comparative example, the location could contain more incriminating evidence.
So I guess make your passwords incriminating or make sure you have multiple domains/spans of crimes all unrelated in the same virtual place.
However they can know if you put your finger on the phone. So they can compel you to do it and either it works or it doesn't. Either way not your problem.
If it is a warrantless search or not is a problem, but seemingly orthogonal to password vs fingerprint. I agree that they shouldn't be able to look through your phone without a warrant even if it has no authentication.
I haven’t tested so be sure to try it before you need it.