Supreme Court Deems Google Geofence Search Constitutional Search, Sends 2019 Robbery Case Back
Updated
Updated · USA TODAY · Jun 29
Supreme Court Deems Google Geofence Search Constitutional Search, Sends 2019 Robbery Case Back
3 articles · Updated · USA TODAY · Jun 29
Summary
A 6-3 Supreme Court majority held that police access to Google Location History through a geofence warrant is a Fourth Amendment search, but it did not decide whether the warrant used in Okello Chatrie’s 2019 bank-robbery case was lawful.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in cellphone location records, and the lower court must now decide whether each step of the warrant was sufficiently particular and backed by probable cause.
The Virginia warrant sought phones near a credit union at 4:52 p.m., ultimately narrowing millions of Google accounts to three suspects while also sweeping in more than a dozen churchgoers who were never identified by police.
Chatrie, who pleaded guilty and received nearly 12 years, remains convicted for now; lower courts had already allowed the evidence under a good-faith exception even while questioning the warrant’s breadth.
The ruling is the court’s first major geofence decision since its 2018 cellphone-location precedent and lands after Google stopped storing such location data on its servers in 2023.
After the Supreme Court curbed geofence warrants, how will police track suspects in a world of digital evidence?
The Court limited one digital dragnet, but what new surveillance tools are already replacing geofence warrants?
With California's new 'Delete Act' now active, can citizens truly erase their digital footprint from government surveillance?
Supreme Court’s 6-3 Ruling in Chatrie v. United States: Geofence Warrants Now Require Probable Cause and Particularity Under Fourth Amendment
Overview
On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark 6-3 decision in Chatrie v. United States, ruling that law enforcement’s use of geofence warrants must follow strict Fourth Amendment privacy protections. This case began when Okello Chatrie was identified and convicted using a geofence warrant, which compelled Google to provide data on every device present in a specific area during a crime. The Court found that such warrants act as a digital dragnet, collecting data without traditional probable cause, and now require law enforcement to meet higher standards to access digital location data, fundamentally reshaping investigative practices.