Wells v. State of Texas  The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Monday in Chatrie v. United States marked the biggest advance in digital privacy since Carpenter v. United States in 2018. By recognizing that Americans retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in digital location tracking, such as Google’s Location History records, the Court closed a major loophole in Fourth Amendment law. But Chatrie is unlikely to be the final word. Like Carpenter before it, the decision is likely to spark a renewed struggle over how to apply this precedent. One case worth watching is Wells v. State of Texas, which the Supreme Court Tuesday remanded to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The facts are straightforward. In 2018, Dallas police investigating a fatal robbery obtained a geofence warrant directing Google to identify every device that had been present within a defined area around the crime scene during a 25-minute period in the early morning hours. The warrant eventually led investigators to Aaron Wells, who was convicted of capital murder. What makes Wells noteworthy is not the crime but the court's fractured reasoning. Like the Fourth Circuit in Chatrie itself, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals produced no clear majority rationale. Four judges assumed that obtaining Google's location history constituted a Fourth Amendment search but upheld the warrant because it was supported by probable cause and was – in the language of the Fourth Amendment – sufficiently “particular” about what would be seized. Two of those judges separately explained that the geofence warrant did not involve a constitutional search at all, relying on theories that users surrender their privacy by sharing information with Google. Three other judges concluded that no search occurred for most of the data sought by the warrant. But they further explained that no probable cause existed either because the police obtained a warrant with only the location where a crime occurred, not a suspect. One judge dissented without opinion, and another did not participate. That division matters because Chatrie resolved the question about whether a search occurred, highlighting the importance of the remaining disagreement about the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and particularity requirements. On that question, the Wells court was divided 4-3, with one justice dissenting but not explaining the basis for his dissent. Now after Chatrie, courts must focus on these difficult questions that divided the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. In essence, courts will now focus on how broad is too broad. How many innocent people may be swept into an investigation before a warrant becomes the digital equivalent of the general warrants the Fourth Amendment was written to forbid? Those are not academic questions. Geofence warrants have already been used in investigations ranging from bank robberies to protests, and each new case forces courts to balance legitimate law enforcement needs against the privacy rights of countless bystanders whose only “crime” was being nearby. Carpenter reshaped surveillance law for nearly a decade. Chatrie promises to do the same. Comments are closed.
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