Chatrie v. United States
609 U. S. ___ (2026) · 6/29/26
Police officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Okello Chatrie’s location data from Google because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information.
Edition: slip opinion
Voices: Syllabus — prepared by the Reporter of Decisions · Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court. · Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor joins, concurring. · Justice Gorsuch, concurring in the judgment. · Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins as to Part I and with whom Justice Barrett joins as to Parts II–B, II–C–1, and II–C–2, dissenting. · Justice Barrett, dissenting.
On May 20, 2019, a man robbed a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia. Local police officers learned from witness interviews and surveillance footage that the robber had approached the credit union from a corner of an adjacent church while appearing to talk on a cell phone, but they could not find out anything more, and the robber remained at large. On June 14, the police officers applied to a Virginia magistrate for a geofence warrant directed to Google, which would require Google to hand over data about the cell phones located within a 150-meter radius of the credit union—the so-called…
Held: Police officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Chatrie’s location data from Google because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information. Pp. 10–33. (a) The Fourth Amendment protects individuals’ reasonable expectations of privacy, and governmental “intrusion into that private sphere generally qualifies as a search.” Carpenter v. United States, 585 U. S. 296, 304. The Amendment’s “basic purpose” is “to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials,” id., at…Read it in the reading room ›