The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would hear a challenge to the constitutionality of a popular law enforcement tool that gives officers broad access to location data drawn from electronic devices near crime scenes.
The case, Chatrie v. United States, involves a man serving prison time for a 2019 bank robbery near Richmond, Va. It has not yet been scheduled for arguments, but will likely be heard later this year, with a decision expected by the end of June or early July.
The man, Okello T. Chatrie, argues that so-called geofence warrants violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The warrants allow law enforcement to collect cellphone location information stored by third-party companies like Google.
Such warrants have become increasingly common in recent years, and the case will test the constitutional boundaries for the ways that law enforcement officials use new technology to solve crimes.
The case began after Mr. Chatrie was indicted in 2019 on two counts related to the armed robbery of a credit union. Law enforcement officials had gathered information about Mr. Chatrie’s whereabouts at the time of the crime by collecting electronic device location data from Google.
Mr. Chatrie’s lawyers argued that a judge should not have allowed the data to be used against him, because collecting it from Google amounted to a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.
They argued that the warrant ran afoul of the Constitution’s requirements for an authorized search. They said it violated Mr. Chatrie’s expectation of privacy by allowing officials access to all location data in the vicinity of the crime scene without seeking data from users that evidence showed might have been linked to the crime.
A federal judge agreed that the warrant violated Mr. Chatrie’s rights because it lacked sufficient probable cause. But he allowed the evidence to be admitted in court, finding that the officer who requested the warrant had acted in good faith. Mr. Chatrie eventually pleaded guilty to charges related to the robbery.
After an appeals court upheld his conviction, Mr. Chatrie asked the justices to weigh in.
Lawyers for the Trump administration had urged the Supreme Court to reject the case. They said that Google had for years been the primary recipient of geofence warrants, because the company had kept a location history database called Sensorvault that stored cellphone location information at a granular level.
Google’s feature, which allows cellphone users to keep track of locations they have previously visited, is turned off by default, lawyers for the Office of the Solicitor General asserted. They argued that when users turn the feature on, they have consented to the data collection.
Indeed, D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, argued that Mr. Chatrie had opted into location tracking, and that the warrant had led law enforcement officers to uncover two robbery-style demand notes from Mr. Chatrie’s bedroom. The officers also found nearly $100,000 in U.S. currency, including bills wrapped in bands signed by a bank teller, and a silver and black semiautomatic pistol.
Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting.
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