## Facts

- Ocean County police suspected Thomas W. Earls of a series of residential burglaries and believed he was traveling with his girlfriend, Amanda Gates.
- Police obtained an arrest warrant for Earls for receiving stolen property and sought to locate him and confirm Gates’s safety.
- Without obtaining a separate warrant for tracking, officers repeatedly contacted T-Mobile for real-time location information for a phone they believed Earls was using.
- Using the carrier-provided location information, officers located Earls’s car at a motel, found Earls and Gates in a room, and recovered stolen property connected to the burglaries.
- Earls moved to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the carrier-assisted tracking and ensuing arrest and search.

## Issues

1. Whether individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy, under the New Jersey Constitution, in the location of their cell phones such that police must obtain a warrant (absent an exception) before acquiring cell-phone location information from a service provider.
2. Whether warrantless acquisition and use of carrier-provided cell-phone location information to locate and arrest Earls was an unlawful search under the New Jersey Constitution.
3. Whether any exception to the warrant requirement (including emergency aid or exigent circumstances) or the plain-view doctrine validated the police conduct and resulting seizures.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Jersey held unanimously that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell-phone location information under the New Jersey Constitution.
- The court held that police must obtain a warrant supported by probable cause, unless a recognized exception applies, to obtain tracking information through use of a cell phone.
- The court reversed the Appellate Division’s conclusion that no privacy interest existed in such location information.
- The matter was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the warrant requirement and for consideration of whether an exception justified the warrantless tracking on these facts.

## Legal Principles

- Cell-phone location information is protected by the New Jersey Constitution because it can reveal detailed information about a person’s movements and associations.
- Mandatory disclosure of information to a service provider to obtain service does not, by itself, eliminate a reasonable expectation of privacy against government access under New Jersey search-and-seizure doctrine.
- Obtaining carrier-provided cell-phone tracking information is a search that generally requires a warrant based on probable cause.
- Evidence observed or seized after locating a suspect may depend on the legality of the initial tracking; plain view cannot alone cure an unconstitutional threshold search.
- Warrantless acquisition of cell-phone location information may be permissible only if justified by a recognized exception, such as emergency aid or exigent circumstances.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that New Jersey citizens retain a state-constitutional privacy interest in cell-phone location data and that police generally must secure a probable-cause warrant to obtain such data from a provider, subject to limited exceptions to be evaluated on remand.


State v. Earls, 70 A.3d 630 (N.J. 2013)