Chatrie v. United States

    Issues

    Does a geofence warrant violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution?

    Oral argument:
    April 27, 2026
    Court below:
    United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

    This case asks the Supreme Court to consider whether a geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Law enforcement collected Okello Chatrie’s location data from his cellphone using a geofence warrant issued after an armed credit union robbery, which the government used as evidence against him. Chatrie argues that the geofence warrant constitutes an unconstitutional search because the Location History data collected by the warrant violates both users’ property interests in their electronic data and reasonable expectations of privacy. Additionally, Chatrie contends that the warrant violates the probable cause and particularity requirements imposed by the Fourth Amendment. The United States asserts that geofence warrants do not violate users’ reasonable expectation for privacy, and that American law does not recognize the property interests asserted by Chatrie in raw data. The United States further argues that this geofence warrant complies with probable cause requirements and is sufficiently particular to pass constitutional muster. This case will impact both the privacy and public safety interests of all Americans.

    Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

    Whether the execution of a geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment.

    Facts

    On May 20, 2019, an armed individual entered the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian, Virginia, stealing $195,000 from its vault. Before law enforcement responded, the robber fled the scene.

    During the initial investigation, Detective Joshua Hylton spoke with witnesses, watched the credit union’s surveillance footage, and pursued two leads. Although these approaches failed to identify the suspect, Detective Hylton saw from the surveillance footage that the robber carried a cellphone. He then applied for a geofence warrant from the Chesterfield County Circuit Court in Virginia, which issued the warrant on June 14, 2019.

    Geofence warrants are a tool that law enforcement increasingly uses to investigate criminal activity. Similar to traditional warrants, a law enforcement officer may petition the court for a geofence warrant. If the court grants the officer’s request and the warrant is served on a service provider, like Google, the provider must turn over location data from individuals who carried their cellphone near the crime scene.

    Here, the geofence warrant required Google to disclose accounts located within 150 meters of the credit union at the time of the robbery. Under the warrant’s three-step plan, Google would first provide law enforcement with anonymized Location History data for devices within the geofence from thirty minutes before and after the robbery. Second, law enforcement would try to narrow the list of suspect devices and send that shorter list to Google. Google would then provide the anonymized Location History for those devices from one hour before to one hour after the robbery. Third, law enforcement would try to narrow the list of suspect devices again, and Google would provide identifying information, including the usernames, of the requested accounts.

    At Step One, Google provided Detective Hylton with data from nineteen accounts of individuals located within the geofence. Google denied Detective Hylton’s next request, which was for data from all nineteen accounts for Step Two and Step Three. Detective Hylton narrowed his request for Step Two to nine accounts, which Google provided. At Step Three, Detective Hylton requested identifying information for three accounts, which Google again provided. One of these three uncovered accounts belonged to Okello Chatrie, who had created his Google account in August 2017 and opted in to Google’s Location History services in July 2018.

    On September 17, 2019, a grand jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia indicted Chatrie for “forced accompaniment during an armed credit union robbery,” in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a), (d), and (e), and “using, carrying, or brandishing a firearm during and in relation to” a violent crime, in violation of § 924(c)(1)(A). On October 1, 2019, Chatrie was arraigned, pleaded not guilty, and then moved to suppress evidence obtained through Detective Hylton’s geofence warrant.

    On March 3, 2022, the district court denied Chatrie’s motion to suppress the Location History evidence under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule, meaning the evidence could still be used even if the search was unconstitutional because law enforcement acted in good faith. The district court did not resolve whether the evidence obtained with the geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. Chatrie then entered a conditional guilty plea and was sentenced to eleven years and nine months’ imprisonment, along with three years’ supervised release.

    Chatrie appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, arguing that the use of the geofence warrant violated his Fourth Amendment rights and that any evidence obtained from the warrant should be suppressed. First, a divided Fourth Circuit panel affirmed the district court’s ruling, holding that the geofence warrant did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search because Chatrie did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when he voluntarily gave Google his Location History data. The Fourth Circuit then agreed to rehear the case en banc, where fourteen of the fifteen judges voted to affirm the district court’s decision. The en banc court was divided, however, in deciding whether a Fourth Amendment search had occurred. 

    Chatrie petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ of certiorari, which the Court granted on January 16, 2026. 

    Analysis

    WHETHER A GEOFENCE WARRANT IS AN UNREASONABLE SEARCH

    Chatrie argues that geofence warrants violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Chatrie notes that the Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Protection against unreasonable searches, according to Chatrie, is triggered when the government infringes on a “property interest” or a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” Chatrie first argues that users of Google’s services hold a property interest in their Location History—in other words, that he owns the private electronic data that makes up his Location History. Chatrie analogizes Location History to other forms of private electronic data that state legislatures and Congress have classified as property for criminal and civil trespass laws. Chatrie also notes that, under common law, intangible property, or property without a physical embodiment, is considered a type of property. Consequently, Chatrie asserts that Location History data is property under the Fourth Amendment. Chatrie additionally clarifies that Google does not own users’ Location History but merely stores it on their behalf, acting as a bailee.Chatrie argues that under the Fourth Amendment, property interests possessed by a bailee are protected. Since the geofence warrant accessed his Location History, Chatrie contends that it constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment.

    Chatrie asserts that, independently of whether users own their Location History, users have a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to their Location History. Chatrie primarily relies on Carpenter v. United States, where the Supreme Court held that users had a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell site location information (“CSLI”). Location History, Chatrie asserts, is more detailed than CSLI because “it can pinpoint a user’s location within three meters, every two minutes, down to elevation within a building.” Therefore, Chatrie argues that users have an arguably stronger expectation of privacy with respect to their Location History than their CSLI. Chatrie notes that Congress has recognized a greater privacy interest in Location History than in CSLI by requiring a warrant to access a user’s Location History but not for CSLI. Chatrie also argues that the third-party doctrine does not apply in this case. Chatrie explains that the third-party doctrine clarifies that individuals give up their expectation of privacy to information when they voluntarily disclose that information to a third party. Chatrie argues that case precedent demonstrates that the third-party doctrine applies only to business records, such as bank records, and Location History is simply not analogous to those documents. Even if Location History is considered a business record, Chatrie asserts that opting into Location History was not voluntary because he was told that enabling it was necessary for his phone to “work correctly.” Thus, Chatrie emphasizes that consent to “activate[] core phone capabilities” “should not be construed as consent to hand Location History to the government.”

    The United States responds that geofence warrants do not violate the Fourth Amendment because users lack both a property interest and a reasonable expectation of privacy in Location History. The United States contends that Chatrie did not properly preserve his leading argument on property in the lower court. Given that Chatrie did not assert his property theory in his Fourth Circuit briefing, the United States points out that the Fourth Circuit never reviewed the question, so Chatrie cannot raise the argument now. The United States further argues that Chatrie’s analogies to state laws that recognize a property interest in electronic data are inapplicable because Chatrie voluntarily gave Google access to his Location History. In contrast, the laws Chatrie cited are only for unauthorized access of that data. The United States highlights that American law has historically “refused to recognize property rights in data,” such as Location History. The United States asserts that Location History, which includes users’ names, ages, and locations, is raw, factual data that is uncopyrightable, which places the data outside the normal scope of what people can own. Additionally, the United States contends that Chatrie failed to support that he, rather than Google, would own any property interest in the Location History. The United States finally asserts that Google is not merely a bailee and that, because users voluntarily agree through Google’s privacy policy to potential data disclosures, Google may lawfully provide Location History to the government.

    The United States also argues that users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy to data like Location History. In this case, the United States asserts that Chatrie voluntarily gave Google short-term data on his movements at the time of the robbery when he opted into having “Google collect, process, use, and store his movements” through its optional Location History feature. While the Supreme Court has found long-term monitoring of an individual’s public movements unreasonable, the United States highlights that the Court has never found “short-term information about public movements” unreasonable. The United States also points out that, by being at the credit union, Chatrie exposed his presence to view by others, security cameras, and law enforcement. Furthermore, the United States notes that Chatrie’s analogy to Carpenter is inapplicable here. The Court in Carpenter noted that CSLI data is generated automatically for “virtually any activity,” making it nearly impossible to avoid its creation. However, the United States contends that the Location History feature is unnecessary for using a smartphone, and most smartphone users do not opt-in to Location History. Unlike Location History, which can be disabled, the United States explains that avoiding CSLI creation requires a user to disconnect entirely from the cellular network, effectively rendering the phone unusable. The United States further notes that “opting in” is an affirmative act, so users should not expect privacy with respect to affirmative actions.

    CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE WARRANT

    Chatrie argues that when the government executes a search under the Fourth Amendment, the government must get a “constitutionally valid warrant.” Chatrie points out that warrants must be particularized to be constitutional under the Fourth Amendment. Chatrie notes that courts determine whether a warrant is particularized by reviewing what is to be searched. Chatrie specifically distinguishes the geofence warrant’s broad reach from more particular warrants. Chatrie notes that because the warrant authorized the government to search every account within a particular radius rather than specific accounts requested in the warrant, the warrant was unconstitutionally broad. The government requests Location History from Google thousands of times each year so, according to Chatrie, that alone suffices to violate users’ reasonable expectation of privacy. Furthermore, Chatrie argues that this warrant was not issued “upon probable cause,” which violates the Fourth Amendment. Specifically, given that the government issued the warrant without identifying what particular account it was looking for and what information could be found in that account, Chatrie asserts that the warrant does not satisfy the probable cause requirement. Chatrie offers analogies to explain his assertion. For instance, Chatrie notes how a warrant to search an apartment in a building cannot simply authorize a search of the entire building on the assumption that evidence is somewhere inside; it must instead specify the particular apartment to be searched. That analogy, according to Chatrie, directly applies to Google accounts. Chatrie then argues that the broad geofence warrant resembles a general warrant, which plainly violates the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Chatrie states that general warrants, such as writs of assistance that historically allowed British soldiers to search homes without limit, were precisely what the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent. Chatrie contends that the geofence warrant mirrors a writ of assistance because the warrant specifies “only the object of the search” and not the location, which enables the police to search anywhere for that object.

    Chatrie argues that even if the Court finds that geofence warrants are not general warrants, the searches at all three steps of the warrant here were unconstitutional. At Step One, Chatrie asserts that when Google copied the private information of nineteen users and sent that to the government, there was an intrusion of privacy. Further, Chatrie highlights that there was no probable cause to search every user who happened to be within the geofence radius. Chatrie finally asserts that at Steps Two and Three, the government conducted searches by seeking and receiving additional information about users without particularity or probable cause.

    The United States counters that probable cause can be satisfied without identifying the specific offender in a warrant. The United States notes that the warrant was proper because there was a “fair probability” that Google would have the location information of people within 150 meters of the robbery site. The United States adds that, contrary to Chatrie’s argument, the warrant specifically described both the place and things to be searched, which is the exact requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Specifically, the warrant pointed to particular evidence on computer servers operated by Google. The United States distinguishes geofence warrants from general warrants by noting that Google, not the government itself, searches through all the information first and then provides the relevant information to the government. The United States thus argues that the information searched was particular to the information it specifically received from Google. The United States additionally argues that the broad search of the information that Google conducts is outside of the government’s control because Google has internally developed its systems to be that way. The United States contends that the Fourth Amendment does not require the specificity that Chatrie argues, especially to identify the accounts to be searched at Step One. The United States instead asserts that getting a warrant that was any more specific than the one at issue would have been virtually impossible, and the Fourth Amendment does not require a greater bar of specificity than what is possible.

    The United States denies that any step of the warrant constituted an unconstitutional search. Specifically, the United States highlights that the Supreme Court permits law enforcement to seek information from third parties to investigate crimes “even if there are no specific suspects.” At Step One, the United States argues that the warrant provided a “fair probability” that Google would find the information the government sought, which is all that is required for a particularized, valid warrant at that stage. The United States asserts that at Steps Two and Three, the government’s narrowed requests rendered the warrant constitutionally valid. The United States also argues that warrants always allow law enforcement some room for discretion in the documents and items that they search or seize. 

    Discussion

    PRIVACY IMPLICATIONS 

    The Project for Privacy & Surveillance Accountability, Inc. (“PPSA”), in support of Chatrie, argues that geofence warrants invade individuals’ privacy. PPSA contends that geofence warrants permit mass surveillance of millions of “suspicionless” individuals by allowing law enforcement to rummage through their private data. Such surveillance, according to PPSA, particularly threatens religious freedom and association rights. PPSA highlights how Location History data can reveal “intimate details of First Amendment-protected activities,” including religious beliefs, shifts in those beliefs, and participation in “recovery ministries” for addictions. If the public became aware of the extent to which the government could surveil these protected activities, PPSA warns that geofence warrants would have a “chilling effect” on those activities. Illustrating its point, PPSA highlights how the geofence warrant used against Chatrie also captured data from everyone at a local church near the credit union, posing a threat to those parishioners’ religious liberty. The Center for Democracy and Technology and three other public interest organizations, in support of Chatrie, agree, highlighting how the government could use geofence warrants to track individuals’ religious and political activities. 

    Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia (collectively, “States”), in support of the United States, counter that banning geofence warrants outright would be overbroad, particularly since geofence warrants, unlike other types of warrants, can be narrowly tailored in ways that would make them minimally invasive. The States highlight that magistrate judges can reduce intrusions on innocent individuals’ private lives by narrowing geofence warrant time frames, shrinking their geographic scope, and taking other similar steps. The Local Government Legal Center (“LGLC”), in support of the United States, contends that Google only has access to a user’s Location History if that user voluntarily chooses to share that information with Google, eliminating the risk of invading cell phone users’ privacy. In response to the First Amendment violations envisioned by Chatrie and his amici, LGLC responds that sufficient safeguards already exist to challenge overbroad geofence warrants. Thus, warrants directed at political or religious activities “would face immediate First Amendment scrutiny.” Additionally, the three-step process for receiving location data from geofence warrants mitigates the risks of identifying innocent individuals because, in the first two stages, data given to law enforcement is anonymized.

    PUBLIC SAFETY

    The Liberty Justice Center (“Center”), in support of Chatrie, claims that geofence warrants present public safety concerns because they are often inaccurate. Google’s Location History data, according to the Center, is often imprecise, providing only a 68% probability that a person identified in a geofence search was actually present at the location in question. The Center warns that law enforcement’s dependence on prior faulty technologies have led to false convictions and that geofence warrants have already led to at least one false arrest. The Innocence Project and The Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law (collectively, “Innocence Project”), in support of Chatrie, echo these concerns, explaining how geofence warrants necessarily sweep in innocent people who merely happened to be near a given location.  The Innocence Project asserts that several innocent individuals have already faced serious consequences, including one man who was wrongly arrested, jailed, fired from his job, and lost his car. Once law enforcement suspects innocent people of committing a crime, the Innocence Project asserts that it is very challenging for those individuals to clear their names. Consequently, the Innocence Project highlights how, in targeting innocent people, geofence warrants allow criminals who do not carry location-enabled smartphones to avoid detection.

    The States, in support of the United States, counter that the risks to public safety are much higher without geofence warrants than with them. The States argue that a blanket ban on geofence warrants would hinder criminal investigations, especially in cases where perpetrators “have limited connections to known victims, act quickly, or leave minimal physical evidence.” To highlight the importance of geofence warrants in these situations, the States point to recent instances in which law enforcement largely relied on data obtained by geofence data to solve crimes ranging from sports betting to homicides. The States further illustrate how the Supreme Court has broadened Fourth Amendment protections to address modern investigative technologies that aid in law enforcement. The States emphasize that tools like geofence warrants should be evaluated in line with other investigative methods, rather than treated as entirely off-limits to law enforcement in criminal investigations. Since modern investigative technologies enable law enforcement to “identify perpetrators and secure convictions” in cases that might otherwise remain unsolved, the States warn that banning geofence warrants would have “severe” consequences for public safety.

    Conclusion

    Authors

    Written by:    Cameron T. Hines and Andrew R. Davis

    Edited by:      Alexandra “Lexie” Kapilian

     

    Additional Resources