The Constitutionality of Geofence Warrants
The US Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of geofence warrants.
The case centers on the trial of Okello Chatrie, a Virginia man who pleaded guilty to a 2019 robbery outside of Richmond and was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison for stealing $195,000 at gunpoint.
Police probing the crime found security camera footage showing a man on a cell phone near the credit union that was robbed and asked Google to produce anonymized location data near the robbery site so they could determine who committed the crime. They did so, providing police with subscriber data for three people, one of whom was Chatrie. Police then searched Chatrie’s home and allegedly surfaced a gun, almost $100,000 in cash and incriminating notes.
Chatrie’s appeal challenges the constitutionality of geofence warrants, arguing that they violate individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights protecting against unreasonable searches.
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Clive Robinson • January 27, 2026 8:27 AM
@ ALL,
I believe the expression is,
“If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime!”
What this appeal can not remove is,
Most other English Law jurisdictions would not give an appeal unless Chatrie could give a reasonable excuse for not knowing about those items.
That however does not in any way make an excuse for the geo-fence warrant. Which can stigmatise people and put them at a disadvantage for a long time.
In the UK in Wales a local politician’s car was observed once or twice a week close to a known “house of ill repute”. Nothing was said or done about it untill he applied to join a policing committee and the police raised objections on this historic record of what they assumed was the politician visiting the “knocking shop”. When the politician finally got answers he pointed out that his sister lived in a house a few doors down and that he was visiting her for dinner and other non public social life with family (normally a wise thing to do if you are a politician as journalist love to spin up tales against local politicians).
So yes I’m aware that just being in an area can cast suspicion on you, and the way the police work is well shall we say to not carry out the requirement to investigate both ways, that is to be impartial and check facts and supposed evidence.
In the US if international agency reports are to be believed US police just look for someone “obviously guilty” then “make them guilty” in various ways (look up Reid Techniques that other Western Countries have either dropped or never used because they encourage significant injustice,
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=142140§ion=3.4 ).