On June 29, 2026, the United States Supreme Court handed down a significant Fourth Amendment decision in Chatrie v. United States, holding that police conduct a “search” when they obtain a person’s cell-phone location data through a so-called geofence warrant. For anyone concerned about digital privacy and the expanding reach of law enforcement surveillance, the ruling is a meaningful affirmation that constitutional protections must keep pace with technology.
The case grew out of a 2019 bank robbery in Midlothian, Virginia. Investigators had little to go on, so they obtained a warrant directing Google to turn over data about every cell phone located within a 150-meter circle around the credit union near the time of the crime. That data came from Google’s Location History service, which logs a phone’s position roughly every two minutes. Through a three-step process, Google eventually identified three users—one of whom was Okello Chatrie, who was later charged with the robbery and related firearms offenses.
What the Court Decided
Writing for a five-Justice majority, Justice Kagan concluded that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell-phone location information, and that the government intrudes on that interest when it demands the data—even when it does so for only a limited time and through a third-party technology company. The Court leaned heavily on its 2018 decision in Carpenter v. United States, which held that accessing historical cell-site location information is a search.
The majority found that Location History is, if anything, more revealing than the cell-site data at issue in Carpenter. It pinpoints a phone within roughly twenty meters rather than within sectors of up to four square miles, records location far more often, and can even estimate which floor of a building a person is on. Because the data paints what the Court called a “detailed” and “encyclopedic” portrait of a person’s movements, it falls squarely within the privacy protections the Fourth Amendment guarantees.
Short Searches and the Third-Party Doctrine
The government raised two main arguments. First, it claimed that two hours of location data was too brief to count as a search. Second, it argued that Chatrie gave up any privacy interest by “voluntarily” sharing his information with Google—the so-called third-party doctrine. The Court rejected both points.
Even short-term monitoring, the majority explained, can expose a person’s familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations, and Fourth Amendment protection does not switch on only once surveillance “goes too far.” As for the third-party doctrine, the Court reasoned that Location History is not truly shared in any ordinary sense. Google repeatedly prompts users to enable the feature—sometimes warning that a device will not “work correctly” otherwise—without disclosing how precisely or how often it will track them. Using the apps and services on a smartphone, the Court held, is not the same as knowingly handing private information over to the government.
A Divided Court
The decision produced several separate writings. Justice Jackson concurred to argue that the warrant itself was likely invalid at its later stages, where officers gathered more data without meaningful magistrate oversight. Justice Gorsuch concurred only in the judgment, urging a property-based approach: he would treat Location History as the user’s “effects” rather than rely on the reasonable-expectation-of-privacy framework. Justices Alito and Barrett dissented, with Justice Alito contending that the Court issued an “advisory opinion” that overextends Carpenter and destabilizes settled law.
Importantly, the Court left a key question unresolved. Because the warrant here was an unusual, multi-step order, the Justices sent the case back to the Fourth Circuit to decide whether each stage satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of probable cause and particularity. The fight over this geofence warrant, in other words, is not over.
Why This Matters in the Fourth Circuit
This case originated in the Eastern District of Virginia and traveled through the Fourth Circuit—the same federal appellate court that governs criminal cases here in North Carolina. The decision reinforces a trend we have followed closely in other Fourth Amendment matters, including our discussion of the emergency-aid exception in Case v. Montana and the Fourth Circuit’s handling of supervised-release and revocation questions. As digital evidence becomes central to more prosecutions, defendants need lawyers who understand both the technology and the evolving constitutional rules that govern it.
It is worth noting that Google has since changed how it stores Location History, reportedly making it no longer able to respond to these geofence demands. But the constitutional principle the Court announced reaches well beyond this one technique and will shape how courts evaluate a wide range of digital surveillance methods going forward.
What This Means for You
If you are under investigation or have been charged based on cell-phone location data, search history, or other digital records, the way that evidence was gathered may be open to challenge. Suppression motions—asking a court to exclude unlawfully obtained evidence—remain one of the most powerful tools in a criminal defense, and decisions like Chatrie broaden the grounds on which they can be brought. Our work on federal criminal defense regularly involves scrutinizing exactly how investigators obtained the information they intend to use at trial.
If you have questions about a criminal investigation or charge involving digital evidence, contact The Chetson Firm at our Raleigh office to schedule a confidential consultation. Damon Chetson is a Board Certified Specialist in State and Federal Criminal Law, and our firm has the experience to evaluate whether your constitutional rights were respected at every stage of the case.