## Facts

- A masked robber used a firearm and a threatening note to rob a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia, taking about $195,000.
- Traditional investigative steps (video review and witness interviews) did not identify a suspect.
- Investigators obtained a geofence warrant compelling Google to produce Location History data for devices within a 150-meter radius of the bank during a one-hour window around the robbery.
- Google produced anonymized device identifiers and location points for nineteen devices within the geofence.
- Under a three-step process, investigators requested expanded location points for a narrowed set of devices (including travel outside the geofence during a two-hour window) and later sought de-anonymization (subscriber/identifying information) for selected devices.
- The process led investigators to identify a device associated with Okello T. Chatrie and obtain subscriber information linking him to that device.
- Chatrie was indicted for armed bank robbery and related firearm offenses and moved to suppress evidence derived from the geofence warrant.

## Issues

1. Whether Chatrie had a reasonable expectation of privacy in Google Location History sufficient to challenge the warrant.
2. Whether obtaining Google Location History data pursuant to the geofence warrant constituted a Fourth Amendment search, including the effect of the third-party doctrine.
3. Whether the geofence warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and particularity requirements given its sweep over all devices in the area.
4. Whether the warrant’s three-step narrowing and later de-anonymization procedures cured any overbreadth or lack of particularity.
5. If a Fourth Amendment violation occurred, whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule barred suppression.
6. Whether any defect in the issuing magistrate’s authority required suppression.

## Decision

- The court held Chatrie had a sufficient privacy interest in Google Location History to contest the geofence warrant.
- The court concluded the warrant, as drafted and executed, failed Fourth Amendment requirements for probable cause and particularity because it compelled broad production of location data for non-suspects within the geofence.
- The court denied suppression because officers acted in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate in an area of unsettled law.
- The court rejected suppression based on alleged defects in the magistrate’s authority, finding the officers could rely on the magistrate’s apparent authority and that no misconduct warranted exclusion.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant may have a reasonable expectation of privacy in detailed, retrospective location information held by a provider, even when the information is associated with account-based services.
- A warrant must be supported by probable cause and must particularly describe the place to be searched and the things to be seized; warrants that sweep in data from many uninvolved persons risk being overbroad and insufficiently particular.
- Post hoc narrowing procedures may reduce the amount of information ultimately identified, but they do not necessarily cure a warrant’s lack of probable cause or particularity at the point the government first compels broad production.
- Suppression is generally unavailable when law enforcement reasonably relies on a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate, especially where governing law is unsettled and officers consult legal advisors.
- The good-faith exception does not apply where police misconduct is deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent; absent such conduct, exclusion is disfavored.

## Conclusion

The court found the geofence warrant constitutionally defective because it broadly compelled Google Location History data for all opted-in users near the crime scene without individualized probable cause, but it denied suppression because officers reasonably relied on a magistrate-issued warrant in a novel and unsettled Fourth Amendment context.


United States v. Chatrie, 590 F. Supp. 3d 901 (E.D. Va. 2022)