Supreme Court weighs geofence warrants

A geofence warrant lets police ask a tech company for location records on every device inside a digital boundary, then work backward to identify people. In Chatrie v. United States, the Supreme Court is weighing whether that crosses the Fourth Amendment line. (lawfaremedia.org) (law.cornell.edu) The case grew out of a May 20, 2019 robbery at Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian, Virginia, where investigators said a gunman stole $195,000 and fled before officers arrived. Detectives later focused on phone-location records after surveillance video appeared to show the robber using a cellphone. (law.cornell.edu) (scotusblog.com) Police got a Virginia state warrant on June 14, 2019 and served it on Google, whose Location History database stored detailed movements from users who had that setting turned on. The first step covered a 150-meter radius around the credit union and a one-hour window: 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after the robbery. (law.cornell.edu) (scotusblog.com) Google first returned anonymized accounts tied to devices in that area, then provided more detailed location points for selected accounts, and finally disclosed subscriber information for three accounts. One of them was linked to Okello Chatrie. (scotusblog.com) (supremecourt.gov) Chatrie pleaded guilty to bank robbery and gun charges after the district court refused to suppress the evidence, even though that court said the warrant lacked the probable cause the Fourth Amendment requires. The judge let the evidence stand under the good-faith exception, which can spare evidence when officers relied on a warrant they believed was valid. (scotusblog.com) (oyez.org) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit then upheld the result on broader grounds, saying the government had not conducted a Fourth Amendment search because Chatrie had voluntarily shared two hours of location data with Google. The Supreme Court agreed in January 2026 to review one question: whether execution of the geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. (scotusblog.com) (supremecourt.gov) The legal fight turns on two ideas the justices already know well: whether people keep a privacy interest in data held by a company, and whether a warrant that sweeps in bystanders is too broad to be particular. Chatrie says geofence warrants search everyone first and sort out suspicion later; the government says they are a modern way to narrow suspects when other leads fail. (law.cornell.edu) (lawfaremedia.org) The case also lands after Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling that police generally need a warrant to get historical cellphone location records from a wireless carrier. Chatrie argues Google location history is even more revealing because it can map precise movements from many users at once. (supremecourt.gov) (lawfaremedia.org) A ruling against the government could limit a once-common investigative tool that police used to send to Google in burglary, arson and homicide cases. Google told U.S. senators in 2023 that it had changed how it stores Location History data, shifting it onto users’ devices by default instead of keeping it centrally in the cloud. (lawfaremedia.org) (blog.google) Oral argument is scheduled for Monday, April 27, 2026. The justices’ decision, expected by late June, will determine whether digital dragnets built from phone-location trails fit inside the Constitution’s rules for searches. (law.cornell.edu) (scotusblog.com)