{"id":287,"date":"2026-06-29T16:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=287"},"modified":"2026-06-29T16:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:39:11","slug":"court-rules-that-law-enforcements-use-of-geofence-warrant-was-a-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=287","title":{"rendered":"Court rules that law enforcement\u2019s use of \u201cgeofence warrant\u201d was a \u201csearch\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Supreme Court on Monday that when law enforcement officials used a \u201cgeofence warrant\u201d \u2013 a warrant that instructed Google to provide location data for cellphone users who were near a particular place during a specific time period \u2013 to obtain evidence used to convict a Virginia man of a 2019 bank robbery, they conducted a \u201csearch\u201d for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. By a vote of 6-3, the justices sent Okello Chatrie\u2019s case back to the lower court for it to consider whether, as the Fourth Amendment requires, the search was \u201creasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan emphasized that \u201c[a]n individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone\u2019s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information\u2014even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissenting opinion joined in part by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, contended that the majority\u2019s opinion \u201cwill send seismic waves through our Fourth Amendment doctrine\u201d but would ultimately not have any effect on Chatrie\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

The issue at the center of Chatrie v. United States<\/em> arose after a man armed with a gun entered a federal credit union outside Richmond, Virginia, and gave the teller a note demanding money. He made off with nearly $200,000, but law enforcement officials did not have any leads until they served Google with a geofence warrant, which directed the tech company to provide location data for cellphone users who were near the bank at the time of the robbery.<\/p>\n

The information that Google provided to law enforcement officials came in three tranches. First, Google gave law enforcement officials a list of the 19 accounts (but without the names attached to those accounts) linked to devices that were within 150 meters of the bank during the 30 minutes before and after the robbery. Second, based on that list of 19 accounts, the government asked for additional information about nine accounts that were in the area during a two-hour period. At the third step, a detective asked for, and received, the names and information associated with three accounts \u2013 one of which was Chatrie\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Relying on the location data, law enforcement officials obtained a warrant to search two residences linked to Chatrie, where they found almost $100,000 of the stolen cash, a gun, and demand notes.<\/p>\n

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Prosecutors charged Chatrie with bank robbery. He asked the trial judge to bar prosecutors from using the evidence obtained as a result of the geofence warrant at his trial, arguing that the warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.<\/p>\n

A federal district judge agreed that the warrant in Chatrie\u2019s case did not have the kind of probable cause and specificity that the Fourth Amendment requires. However, she nonetheless allowed the prosecutors to use the evidence, reasoning that even if there had been a violation of the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement officials had acted in good faith.<\/p>\n

Chatrie pleaded guilty to bank robbery, although he retained his right to appeal the district court\u2019s ruling allowing prosecutors to use the evidence obtained through the geofence warrant. He was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.<\/p>\n

By a vote of 2-1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the denial of Chatrie\u2019s motion to exclude the evidence obtained as a result of the geofence warrant. The majority reasoned that law enforcement officials had not conducted a \u201csearch\u201d for purposes of the Fourth Amendment because Chatrie could not reasonably expect two hours\u2019 worth of location data, which he had voluntarily allowed Google to have, to be kept private. When the full court of appeals reconsidered the case, it \u00a0the panel\u2019s ruling in a deeply divided decision.<\/p>\n

Read more Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner and overturns major restraint on presidential power<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court on Monday that when law enforcement officials used a \u201cgeofence warrant\u201d \u2013 a warrant that instructed Google to provide location data for cellphone users who were near a particular place during a specific time period \u2013 to obtain evidence used to convict a Virginia man of a 2019 bank robbery, they conducted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion-analysis"],"yoast_head":"\nCourt rules that law enforcement\u2019s use of \u201cgeofence warrant\u201d was a \u201csearch\u201d - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=287\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court rules that law enforcement\u2019s use of \u201cgeofence warrant\u201d was a \u201csearch\u201d - 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