Cell Phone Privacy Upheld Here, But Supreme Court Not So Sure

Predicting the prospective national outcome remains an incredibly close call. Don’t bet your cell phone on it.

The Minnesota Supreme Court struck a major blow for digital privacy on behalf of cell phone users—which consists of just about everyone these days, given that 98% of all adults in this country own one, with nearly three-quarters sporting iPhones. The ball, or rather the cell, is now in the court, literally and figuratively, of its federal counterpart in the nation’s capital as to the rest of the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court, with its customary exquisite timing, is about to rule on a case involving the permissibility of law enforcement using digital cell phone tracking to apprehend criminal suspects. This very issue was addressed and resolved in mid-April 2026 by the Minnesota Supreme Court, a couple of weeks before the justices in Washington, D.C., heard their own version of the high-stakes constitutional dispute.

The high court case, Chatrie v. United States, challenges the conviction of a Virginia man who robbed a credit union outside of Richmond. He was identified, apprehended, and ultimately pleaded guilty due to a “geofence” search warrant that swept location data from all cell phones near the facility for a half-hour window before and after the heist.

The case mirrors a landmark decision handed down by the Minnesota Supreme Court, which ruled that while this type of law enforcement technique is constitutionally permissible, it must be strictly reined in with particularity to suspected individual cell phone users, rather than deployed as a sweeping, blunderbuss dragnet. The pendency of the high court case and the recency of its Minnesota counterpart warrant a closer look at these two pivotal search-and-seizure disputes.

Lower Court Litigation

The results of the initial litigation in the Chatrie case were adverse to the defendant, who was sentenced to nearly 12 years of federal imprisonment. The federal trial judge deemed the geofence warrant improper because it lacked individualized probable cause, but nevertheless allowed the evidence under the exclusionary rule’s “good faith” exception.

A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the ruling, but on a more radical ground: it ruled that the robber lacked a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in the location data held by Google that led to his capture. An en banc review by the full appellate bench split equally at 7–7, leaving that panel verdict intact. That deadlocked outcome preceded the U.S. Supreme Court granting certiorari and hearing oral arguments at the tail end of April 2026.

Mixed Judicial Minds

The high court’s oral arguments were characterized by deeply mixed views among the nine members of the tribunal. Justice Neil Gorsuch, a staunch conservative with a distinct libertarian streak on privacy, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s most liberal member, asked the most demanding and skeptical questions of the government’s attorney. They pressed hard regarding the constitutional scope of allowing law enforcement unchecked access to other sensitive electronic assets, such as personal emails, private photos, and stored documents.

Conversely, two of Gorsuch’s conservative colleagues, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, fretted openly about restricting vital police work. Kavanaugh went so far as to assert that the detective who served the warrant and executed the ensuing arrest “should be applauded.”

Chief Justice John Roberts swerved between both camps, as is often his institutional preference. He expressed profound concern about deploying geofence techniques broadly, noting the chilling potential of using them to uncover the identities of everyone attending a particular church or political demonstration.

The final outcome remains in doubt, but it carries a significant impact for the millions of Americans who utilize Google services. These “location services” automatically collect data every two minutes detailing where users travel and when. Unlike conventional warrants that target identified suspects based on individual probable cause, geofence warrants operate in reverse: by drawing a virtual perimeter around a geographical area where a crime occurred, police fish for data on every user whose device happened to be in that area at that time. The petitioner’s attorney warned that the “potential for abuse is breathtaking.”

Cellular Cases

The Chatrie case is merely the latest in a decade-long line of cell phone litigation decided by the nation’s highest court.

In the 2014 landmark case Riley v. California, a unanimous Supreme Court required police officers to obtain a warrant before searching a digital cell phone seized during an arrest. In a memorable decision authored by Chief Justice Roberts, the court observed that modern cell phones are not mere technological gadgets, but powerful “minicomputers” holding vast amounts of the “privacies of life.”

Four years later, in Carpenter v. United States, the court held in a narrow 5–4 decision that the government generally requires a warrant based on probable cause to access historical cell-site location information (CSLI) from wireless carriers, citing the deeply intimate nature of the physical movements revealed by that data.

The Minnesota Metaphor

Meanwhile, a remarkably similar digital puzzle was resolved right here in Minnesota in favor of a criminal defendant. In State v. Contreras-Sanchez, a man convicted of second-degree intentional murder in Dakota County District Court challenged a geofence warrant directed to Google. Police had sought data reflecting all mobile phones in the immediate area of a rural culvert in Castle Rock Township where a missing man’s body had been discovered.

The warrant successfully led to the detection of the suspect, who eventually confessed. He later unsuccessfully sought to suppress his statements at trial, resulting in his conviction by a Dakota County jury.

Reversing the Minnesota Court of Appeals panel that had upheld the warrant, the Minnesota Supreme Court overturned the murder conviction. In a nuanced majority opinion written by Justice Sarah Hennesy, the court recognized that cell phone users maintain a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in location data stored by tech giants like Google. The court held that while geofencing warrants are not per se unconstitutional general warrants, the blunderbuss warrant used in this case was fatally defective because it failed to satisfy the structural “particularity requirement” mandated by Article I, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution.

By giving law enforcement “unchecked discretion” to filter through the initial pool of device data, the warrant crossed the constitutional line. The court remanded the case to determine whether the conviction could be sustained under the “good faith” exception or the doctrine of “harmless error.”

The high-stakes case drew a dissent from Justice Anne McKeig, joined by Justice Gordon Moore, who argued that the state court should have stayed its hand and waited for the U.S. Supreme Court’s definitive guidance in the pending Chatrie matter. The internal debate was clear: the dissenters urged prudence and uniformity, while the 4–2 majority insisted on acting immediately because their ruling rested on independent and adequate state constitutional grounds.

Problematic Privacy

Privacy has historically been a problematic concept in Minnesota jurisprudence. For decades, unlike nearly all of our sister states, Minnesota courts flatly refused to recognize a common-law right to privacy in civil cases. The judiciary finally departed from that long-standing reluctance in the landmark 1997 decision entitled Lake v. Walmart Stores, Inc, where the justices in St. Paul, in a 5–2 vote, formally recognized civil privacy claims.

In criminal matters, privacy issues continue to be aggressively litigated under the search-and-seizure provisions of our state constitution. The upshot of this spring’s ruling in Contreras-Sanchez is clear: geofence warrants are constitutionally permissible in Minnesota, but only if they are tightly bound by strict parameters and individualized probable cause. Because it was decided under the state constitution, our local rule stands independent of whatever the federal high court decides next month.

The pending federal ruling in Chatrie is expected before the Washington justices adjourn for the summer in late June. It will present them with a direct opportunity to either join or depart from the constitutional trail blazed by the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Predicting the prospective national outcome remains an incredibly close call. Don’t bet your cell phone on it.

Cell Phone Data References