Overview
- The justices agreed to hear Chatrie v. United States to decide if geofence warrants, which pull location data for every device near a crime scene, violate the Fourth Amendment.
- Police used a geofence warrant on Google’s Location History in a 2019 Virginia bank robbery, identified Okello Chatrie’s phone near the scene, searched his home, and recovered nearly $100,000.
- A trial judge said the geofence search violated Chatrie’s rights but let the evidence in under the good‑faith exception, and the Fourth Circuit later upheld his conviction in a split decision.
- A separate federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled such warrants are general warrants barred by the Constitution, creating a direct split the Supreme Court is now set to resolve.
- Prosecutors say the tool helps solve hard cases, including parts of the Jan. 6 probe and several homicides, while civil liberties groups warn it sweeps in bystanders’ private data and clashes with the Court’s 2018 Carpenter ruling on digital location privacy.