By John Ellis [1]

Editor’s Note: Okello Chatrie’s case began as a 2019 Virginia credit-union robbery investigation and reached the Supreme Court as a major test of geofence warrants. On June 29, 2026, in Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112, a five-Justice opinion authored by Justice Kagan held that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain Google Location History through a geofence warrant. Justice Gorsuch concurred in the judgment, giving the threshold search holding six votes, though only five Justices joined the Court’s Katz/Carpenter rationale. The decision settles the threshold search question that divided lower courts, but leaves probable cause, particularity, reasonableness, and good faith for the Fourth Circuit on remand. Defenders and CJA practitioners litigating digital location evidence should assess the implications immediately.

Introduction

On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court held in Chatrie v. United States that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain a person’s historical Google Location History through a geofence warrant. The decision settles a threshold question that divided courts for years and eliminates the government’s most common argument for avoiding Fourth Amendment scrutiny altogether. For years, prosecutors argued that because Google stored the data, obtaining it did not implicate the Fourth Amendment at all. Chatrie rejects that premise. Location History is not just another third-party business record. It is highly precise, frequently recorded, retrospectively searchable, and user-facing in a way that makes it closer to a personal digital journal than a carrier’s internal network log. The Court stopped short of declaring geofence warrants categorically unconstitutional. Whether any particular warrant satisfies probable cause, particularity, and reasonableness is now the central question. Those issues return to the Fourth Circuit on remand, along with the unresolved question whether the good-faith exception applies.