The Supreme Court heard oral argument on April 28 in *Chatrie v. United States*, a Fourth Amendment challenge to law enforcement's use of geofence warrants,…
The Supreme Court heard oral argument on April 28 in *Chatrie v. United States*, a Fourth Amendment challenge to law enforcement's use of geofence warrants, broad location-data requests directed at technology companies like Google that can sweep in device information for every person within a defined geographic area during a specified time window [1]. The case presents the Court with its first direct opportunity to rule on the constitutional status of a surveillance tool that investigators have deployed in hundreds of criminal cases across the country [1].
The case reaches the Court after winding through the federal appellate system. Prosecutors used a geofence warrant served on Google to identify Okello Chatrie as a suspect in a 2019 armed bank robbery in Midlothian, Virginia, obtaining location data from Google's "Sensorvault" database [1]. The Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld the warrant, concluding that the third-party doctrine, which holds that information voluntarily shared with a third party carries no reasonable expectation of privacy, foreclosed Chatrie's Fourth Amendment claim [1]. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a developing circuit split over how the doctrine applies to granular, real-time location information held by private platforms.
The constitutional stakes are substantial. *Carpenter v. United States* (2018) limited the third-party doctrine for historical cell-site location information, holding that the volume and precision of that data triggered Fourth Amendment protections. *Chatrie* asks whether the same reasoning extends to geofence data, which can be more granular and can implicate individuals who have no connection to any crime [1]. A ruling for Chatrie would require probable-cause warrants particularized to specific suspects, complicating an investigative technique that law enforcement agencies have used with minimal judicial friction since the mid-2010s. A ruling for the government would leave the third-party doctrine largely intact for platform-held location data, despite the scale of modern digital surveillance.
The decision is expected before the term closes at the end of June 2026 [1]. Depending on how broadly the majority writes, the ruling could also reach other forms of bulk data requests, including keyword search warrants and requests for account identifiers tied to specific online activity. Law enforcement agencies, technology companies, and civil liberties organizations have all filed amicus briefs pressing the Court to set a clear rule.
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**Meta Description:** The Supreme Court heard argument April 28 in *Chatrie v. United States*, weighing whether geofence warrants targeting Google location data violate the Fourth Amendment.
**Slug:** chatrie-scotus-geofence-warrant-fourth-amendment
**Tags:** Legal News, Hearing, Chatrie v. United States, United States, District of Columbia, Washington, Fourth Amendment, Digital Privacy, Surveillance, U.S. Supreme Court, Google LLC
**Metadata:**
– subject: Chatrie v. United States, Geofence Warrant Fourth Amendment
– subject_type: Hearing
– date: 2026-04-28
– jurisdiction: federal
– country: United States
– region: District of Columbia
– city: Washington
– key_people: N/A
– key_organizations: U.S. Supreme Court, Google LLC
– themes: Fourth Amendment, Digital Privacy, Surveillance
– significance: A ruling placing constitutional limits on geofence warrants would alter law enforcement's digital investigation toolkit and resolve a circuit split affecting the location privacy of millions of Americans.
**References:**
[1] SCOTUSblog. (2026, April 28). The final argument day. https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/04/final-arguments-of-the-term/