Police Use of Geofence Warrants Splits Courts Over 4th Amendment

The Fourth Circuit’s decision to re-hear en banc a privacy dispute over whether Virginia police’s use of phone location data violated Fourth Amendment protections could shape a constitutional question for the US Supreme Court.

Okello Chatrie, accused of robbing a bank in Richmond, Va. in 2019, sought to suppress evidence obtained from a geofence warrant key to his arrest, claiming police’s conclusions and methods were over-broad and unconstitutional. Despite agreeing with Chatrie’s Fourth Amendment arguments, the Virginia district court let the evidence stand because state investigators thought they had a valid warrant.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth ...