Chatrie v. United States: The Supreme Court Says Your Cell-Phone Location Data Is Protected by the Fourth Amendment

By Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Rocky Brancato — The Brancato Law Firm, P.A.

Published June 30, 2026  •  Decided by the U.S. Supreme Court June 29, 2026 (No. 25–112)

I am Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Rocky Brancato, managing attorney of The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. Before I built this firm, I served as Chief Operations Officer of the Hillsborough County Public Defender’s Office and as a police academy instructor — so I have spent time on both sides of how officers are trained to get warrants and gather digital evidence. Today our attorneys put that experience to work challenging the State’s evidence in serious felony cases across the Tampa Bay area.

Every year, more of those cases turn on data from a phone rather than a witness on a corner. The Supreme Court just issued a decision that reshapes how that evidence can be gathered. Below, our team breaks down what Chatrie actually held, what it did not hold (a distinction most headlines get wrong), and what it means if location data is part of your case in Florida.

What Did the Supreme Court Decide in Chatrie v. United States?

The Supreme Court held that obtaining a person’s cell-phone location data is a Fourth Amendment search. Writing for a five-Justice majority, Justice Kagan reasoned that accessing a person’s Location History qualifies because “an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information.” Justice Gorsuch agreed that a search occurred (he would have reached that result through a property-based “effects” analysis rather than the privacy test), so six Justices in all concluded a search took place; Justices Alito, Thomas, and Barrett dissented. The Court vacated the Fourth Circuit’s judgment and remanded.

What Was the Chatrie Case About?

Chatrie grew out of a 2019 Virginia bank robbery that police solved with a geofence warrant. On May 20, 2019, a man robbed a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia, handing the teller a note demanding $100,000, brandishing a firearm, and leaving on foot with roughly $195,000. Witnesses and surveillance footage showed that the robber had approached from the corner of an adjacent church while appearing to talk on a cell phone. With no suspect, investigators applied for a geofence warrant directed at Google.

The warrant set up a 150-meter circle around the credit union and a three-step process. At step one, Google produced anonymized location data for every phone inside the geofence in the hour surrounding the robbery — 19 devices. At step two, officers narrowed the list to nine and obtained an expanded two-hour window of movement, both inside and outside the circle. At step three, officers narrowed again to three devices and demanded names and phone numbers. One of the three was the defendant, Okello Chatrie, whose data placed him inside the geofence about ten minutes before the robbery.

The trial court found the warrant “plainly violates” the Fourth Amendment but admitted the evidence under the good-faith exception. A Fourth Circuit panel affirmed on different reasoning — no search at all — and the full court then split 7–7 on whether a search had occurred, affirming in a one-sentence order. The Supreme Court took the case to resolve that single question.

What Is a Geofence Warrant — and Can Google Still Answer One?

A geofence warrant works backwards from a normal warrant. Instead of naming a suspect and asking for that person’s data, it draws a virtual perimeter around a crime scene and asks a technology company to identify every device that was inside it during a window of time. The goal is to turn an unknown offender’s own phone into the thing that identifies him.

Location History is what made this possible. Google’s service logs a phone’s position roughly every two minutes, can pin a location to within about twenty meters, and can even estimate which floor of a building you are on. The Court noted that more than 500 million users worldwide had enabled it. By comparison, the cell-site data at issue in Carpenter logged location around 101 times a day within sectors of one-eighth to four square miles; Location History averages about 720 chartings a day. It is, as the trial court put it, the most sweeping location tool in existence.

Geofence Surveillance, By the Numbers

The scale is what makes this technology so different from a detective tailing a suspect. Every figure below comes straight from the Supreme Court’s opinion and the record in this case:

Is My Cell-Phone Location Data Protected by the Fourth Amendment?

Yes. After Chatrie, you keep a reasonable expectation of privacy in your cell-phone location data, and police generally need a warrant supported by probable cause to obtain it — including Google Location History, and even a short slice of it.

The Court reached that result by building directly on Carpenter v. United States (2018), which held that accessing a week or more of cell-site location information is a search because people have “a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements.” The Chatrie majority found that everything Carpenter relied on “applies as well or better” to Location History: it is more precise, more comprehensive, and — because users treat it as a personal journal they can review and edit — more clearly their own, like emails, photos, and calendars stored in the cloud.

Does It Matter That Police Pulled Only Two Hours of Data?

No — two hours is enough. The Government argued that a short window of location data is too brief to be a search, and the Court disagreed. Even short-term monitoring can reveal a person’s “familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations,” and the Fourth Amendment does not kick in only once an intrusion “goes too far.” As the Court put it, where the Amendment applies, it applies regardless of “the quality or quantity of information” obtained. The fact that officers can hand-pick a few hours out of an all-encompassing database is a convenience for the government, not a limit on its power.

Do I Lose Fourth Amendment Protection Because Google Stored the Data?

No. Storing your data on Google’s servers does not strip your Fourth Amendment protection. The third-party doctrine — from United States v. Miller (bank records) and Smith v. Maryland (dialed phone numbers) — normally says you lose Fourth Amendment protection in information you hand to a third party. Carpenter refused to apply it to cell-site data, and Chatrie refuses to apply it to Location History. Turning on a phone feature, the Court reasoned, is “the automatic price of conventional cell-phone usage,” not a meaningful choice to broadcast your every movement. The majority rejected the Government’s point that only about one-third of users enable the service, warning that an app-by-app, “what percentage signed up” test would be unworkable.

How Did the Justices Vote in Chatrie?

Six Justices concluded a search occurred and three dissented, but they fractured on the reasoning. Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, concurred but would have gone further, concluding that steps two and three of this warrant already failed for lack of probable cause and particularity — giving officers a “roving commission” to collect more data without a magistrate’s check. Justice Gorsuch concurred only in the judgment, arguing the Court should ground the result in whether Location History is one of Chatrie’s “effects” — his personal property — rather than in the privacy test he would discard.

Justice Alito, joined in part by Justices Thomas and Barrett, dissented on two fronts: that the opinion is effectively advisory because it does not disturb the good-faith holding that controls Chatrie’s conviction, and that Carpenter should not be extended to a brief, public-place geofence built on a voluntarily enabled feature. Justice Barrett added a short dissent agreeing there was no privacy interest in public movements voluntarily disclosed to Google. The dissents also warn that the logic could eventually reach search histories, purchase records, and payment apps — a warning defense lawyers will use as much as prosecutors fear it.

Does Chatrie Apply to Criminal Cases in Florida?

Yes. Florida courts are bound by this decision. Under the conformity clause of the Florida Constitution (Article I, Section 12), Florida’s search-and-seizure protections are construed in conformity with the Fourth Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. So a Tampa-area judge evaluating a challenge to cell-phone location evidence must apply Chatrie and Carpenter just as a federal judge would.

Here is the realistic picture our attorneys give clients. The decision strengthens the argument that obtaining location data is a search requiring a warrant supported by probable cause and described with particularity. But it does not automatically suppress anything. Whether evidence comes out still depends on attacking the specific warrant in your case — its probable cause, its scope, and how much discretion it handed officers — and on whether the State can fall back on the good-faith exception. That is fact-by-fact litigation, and it is exactly the kind of motion practice these cases now demand.

What Comes Next — Are Reverse Keyword Warrants Legal?

The law here is still unsettled, and these fights are just beginning. The dissents warned that Chatrie’s logic could eventually reach a person’s Google search history, Amazon purchase records, and payment apps like Venmo and Apple Pay. Whether the Justices meant that as an alarm or a roadmap, defense lawyers are already pressing those arguments — and the clearest preview is the reverse keyword-search warrant, the mirror image of a geofence. Instead of asking “whose phone was here,” it asks a company “who searched for this?”

In People v. Seymour, 536 P.3d 1260 (Colo. 2023), the Colorado Supreme Court recognized that a person has a constitutionally protected privacy interest in his Google search history — there, under the Colorado Constitution — and a possessory interest in that data under both the state constitution and the Fourth Amendment. Justice Gorsuch pointed to Seymour in his Chatrie concurrence for exactly that idea: copying your digital records interferes with data that remains yours.

But notice the recurring pattern. Even in Seymour, the court let the evidence in under the good-faith exception because the law was not settled when officers acted — the same structure Chatrie is likely to follow on remand. Recognizing a constitutional interest is step one; actually suppressing evidence is a separate, fact-specific fight that turns on the particular warrant and on timing.

Why Choose The Brancato Law Firm for a Cell-Phone Location Data Case?

Digital-evidence defense is a team effort — lawyers who know how warrants are written, and the forensic discipline to test what the data actually shows. That is how our firm is built.

As the firm grows, the approach stays the same: we read the warrant, we test the State’s evidence, and our attorneys treat each client’s future as if it were our own.

Frequently Asked Questions About Cell-Phone Location Data and Chatrie

What did the Supreme Court decide in Chatrie v. United States?

The Court held that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain a person’s cell-phone location data, including Google Location History pulled through a geofence warrant. It extended the 2018 Carpenter decision and rejected the argument that a short, two-hour window or storage on Google’s servers removes that protection.

Do police need a warrant to get my cell-phone location data?

After Chatrie, obtaining that data is a search, which generally means law enforcement must satisfy the Fourth Amendment — typically through a warrant supported by probable cause and described with particularity. Recognized exceptions, such as genuine emergencies, can still apply.

What is a geofence warrant?

It is a warrant that draws a virtual perimeter around a location and asks a technology company to identify every device inside it during a time window, rather than naming a suspect first. The goal is to use an unknown offender’s own phone to identify him.

Does Chatrie mean the evidence in my case will be thrown out?

Not automatically. Chatrie decided only that obtaining the data is a search; it did not suppress any evidence. Whether evidence is excluded depends on the specific warrant in your case and on whether the good-faith exception applies — issues that have to be litigated.

Can Google still respond to geofence warrants?

According to a footnote in the opinion, Google changed its system in July 2025 to store Location History on individual devices and represents that it can no longer respond to geofence warrants for that data. The broader Fourth Amendment rule in Chatrie, however, reaches well beyond geofencing.

Does Chatrie apply in Florida state court?

Yes. Florida’s Constitution requires its search-and-seizure protections to be interpreted in conformity with the Fourth Amendment as construed by the U.S. Supreme Court, so Florida judges must apply Chatrie.

What is the difference between cell-site data and Location History?

Cell-site location information is generated automatically when a phone connects to towers and is fairly coarse. Location History is a Google feature that logs position about every two minutes, often within twenty meters, and can even estimate which floor you are on — making it far more precise.

Does the third-party doctrine still apply to my data?

For cell-phone location data, Chatrie says no — sharing it with a provider does not strip your privacy interest. The doctrine still governs some categories of records, and where the line falls for things like search or purchase history remains unsettled.

What kinds of cases does this affect?

Any case where the State relies on cell-phone location — drug conspiracies, robbery, burglary, homicide, fraud, stalking, and more. If your location was placed at a scene through phone data, the warrant behind it is worth examining.

What should I do if police used my location data against me?

Have a defense attorney review the warrant and the underlying affidavit before trial to assess a possible motion to suppress. The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. handles digital-evidence and Fourth Amendment litigation throughout Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties — call (813) 727-7159.

This article is attorney advertising and general legal information about a recent court decision. It is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and should not be relied on as a prediction of any outcome. Court decisions are fact-specific, and a slip opinion is subject to formal revision. If you are facing charges, consult a licensed attorney about your specific situation.