US v. Chatrie: the court's chance to reshape rules around digital privacy
Equal justice apparently isn't equal anymore.
tl;dr: SCOTUS will have the chance to review the validity of "geofence" warrants, potentially going as far as fundamentally rethinking the "third party doctrine" overall.
Carpenter v. US: the facts of the case
Before we get into the case that SCOTUS just agreed to hear, it's good to start with some background about US v. Carpenter (2018), the last big 4th amendment case related to this topic. While the facts are less critical to the legal issue, they present a neat tour of various issues in criminal law (largely drawn from the 6th circuit opinion and district court docket):
Starting in December 2010, 25 year old Timothy Ivory Carpenter spent two months acting as a lookout in a series of robberies of Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio.
Local police arrested four men in April 2011. One of the men confessed, implicating a shifting ensemble of 15 men as lookouts and getaway drivers in a series of 9 robberies.
At trial, seven accomplices testified that Carpenter organized most of the robberies and often supplied the guns. Carpenter typically waited in a stolen car, and at his signal the robbers entered the store, brandished their guns, herded customers and employees to the back, and ordered the employees to fill the robbers’ bags with new smartphones.
Beyond the testimony of accomplices, the government also relied on cell site data acquired with a 2703(d) order. This law exists in a middle ground between a subpoena and a warrant, allowing a judge to issue an order requiring a carrier to disclose metadata about who a customer contacted, where they did it from, how long calls were, etc.
The FBI used this data at trial, showing (for example) that he placed calls before and after the robbery from within 0.5-2 miles of a Radio Shack store.
Unfortunately for Carpenter, at the time of his conviction, §924(c) at the time allowed for "stacking" of multiple offenses, and so his four robberies turned into four convictions with 25 year minimum sentences, which, along with his other convictions resulted in a 116 year prison sentence
Carpenter has continued to argue for relief from prison, including an unsuccessful cert petition in 2023 about some of the nuances of resentencing under the First Step Act.
To this day, Carpenter is still fighting to alter his sentencing, following the decision in Hewitt v. US. He's scheduled for release in 2112, when he would be 127 years old.
Carpenter v. US: the legal challenge
Carpenter challenged the constitutionality of the search under the "reasonable grounds" standard of a 2703(d) order and the disclosure of his phone records. In his view, this was a search without a warrant and should have been suppressed at trial.
The sixth circuit disagreed. Writing for the majority, Judge Kethledge held that under Supreme Court precedent in Smith v. Maryland and the "third party doctrine", this was not a search of Carpenter's data. Under this doctrine, Carpenter had voluntarily given this information to his cell phone provider by virtue of using their service.
Judge Stranch concurred in judgment only, taking issue with the "sheer quantity of sensitive information procured without a warrant". She pointed to cases like …
Equal justice apparently isn't equal anymore.
tl;dr: SCOTUS will have the chance to review the validity of "geofence" warrants, potentially going as far as fundamentally rethinking the "third party doctrine" overall.
Carpenter v. US: the facts of the case
Before we get into the case that SCOTUS just agreed to hear, it's good to start with some background about US v. Carpenter (2018), the last big 4th amendment case related to this topic. While the facts are less critical to the legal issue, they present a neat tour of various issues in criminal law (largely drawn from the 6th circuit opinion and district court docket):
Starting in December 2010, 25 year old Timothy Ivory Carpenter spent two months acting as a lookout in a series of robberies of Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio.
Local police arrested four men in April 2011. One of the men confessed, implicating a shifting ensemble of 15 men as lookouts and getaway drivers in a series of 9 robberies.
At trial, seven accomplices testified that Carpenter organized most of the robberies and often supplied the guns. Carpenter typically waited in a stolen car, and at his signal the robbers entered the store, brandished their guns, herded customers and employees to the back, and ordered the employees to fill the robbers’ bags with new smartphones.
Beyond the testimony of accomplices, the government also relied on cell site data acquired with a 2703(d) order. This law exists in a middle ground between a subpoena and a warrant, allowing a judge to issue an order requiring a carrier to disclose metadata about who a customer contacted, where they did it from, how long calls were, etc.
The FBI used this data at trial, showing (for example) that he placed calls before and after the robbery from within 0.5-2 miles of a Radio Shack store.
Unfortunately for Carpenter, at the time of his conviction, §924(c) at the time allowed for "stacking" of multiple offenses, and so his four robberies turned into four convictions with 25 year minimum sentences, which, along with his other convictions resulted in a 116 year prison sentence
Carpenter has continued to argue for relief from prison, including an unsuccessful cert petition in 2023 about some of the nuances of resentencing under the First Step Act.
To this day, Carpenter is still fighting to alter his sentencing, following the decision in Hewitt v. US. He's scheduled for release in 2112, when he would be 127 years old.
Carpenter v. US: the legal challenge
Carpenter challenged the constitutionality of the search under the "reasonable grounds" standard of a 2703(d) order and the disclosure of his phone records. In his view, this was a search without a warrant and should have been suppressed at trial.
The sixth circuit disagreed. Writing for the majority, Judge Kethledge held that under Supreme Court precedent in Smith v. Maryland and the "third party doctrine", this was not a search of Carpenter's data. Under this doctrine, Carpenter had voluntarily given this information to his cell phone provider by virtue of using their service.
Judge Stranch concurred in judgment only, taking issue with the "sheer quantity of sensitive information procured without a warrant". She pointed to cases like …
US v. Chatrie: the court's chance to reshape rules around digital privacy
Equal justice apparently isn't equal anymore.
tl;dr: SCOTUS will have the chance to review the validity of "geofence" warrants, potentially going as far as fundamentally rethinking the "third party doctrine" overall.
Carpenter v. US: the facts of the case
Before we get into the case that SCOTUS just agreed to hear, it's good to start with some background about US v. Carpenter (2018), the last big 4th amendment case related to this topic. While the facts are less critical to the legal issue, they present a neat tour of various issues in criminal law (largely drawn from the 6th circuit opinion and district court docket):
Starting in December 2010, 25 year old Timothy Ivory Carpenter spent two months acting as a lookout in a series of robberies of Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio.
Local police arrested four men in April 2011. One of the men confessed, implicating a shifting ensemble of 15 men as lookouts and getaway drivers in a series of 9 robberies.
At trial, seven accomplices testified that Carpenter organized most of the robberies and often supplied the guns. Carpenter typically waited in a stolen car, and at his signal the robbers entered the store, brandished their guns, herded customers and employees to the back, and ordered the employees to fill the robbers’ bags with new smartphones.
Beyond the testimony of accomplices, the government also relied on cell site data acquired with a 2703(d) order. This law exists in a middle ground between a subpoena and a warrant, allowing a judge to issue an order requiring a carrier to disclose metadata about who a customer contacted, where they did it from, how long calls were, etc.
The FBI used this data at trial, showing (for example) that he placed calls before and after the robbery from within 0.5-2 miles of a Radio Shack store.
Unfortunately for Carpenter, at the time of his conviction, §924(c) at the time allowed for "stacking" of multiple offenses, and so his four robberies turned into four convictions with 25 year minimum sentences, which, along with his other convictions resulted in a 116 year prison sentence
Carpenter has continued to argue for relief from prison, including an unsuccessful cert petition in 2023 about some of the nuances of resentencing under the First Step Act.
To this day, Carpenter is still fighting to alter his sentencing, following the decision in Hewitt v. US. He's scheduled for release in 2112, when he would be 127 years old.
Carpenter v. US: the legal challenge
Carpenter challenged the constitutionality of the search under the "reasonable grounds" standard of a 2703(d) order and the disclosure of his phone records. In his view, this was a search without a warrant and should have been suppressed at trial.
The sixth circuit disagreed. Writing for the majority, Judge Kethledge held that under Supreme Court precedent in Smith v. Maryland and the "third party doctrine", this was not a search of Carpenter's data. Under this doctrine, Carpenter had voluntarily given this information to his cell phone provider by virtue of using their service.
Judge Stranch concurred in judgment only, taking issue with the "sheer quantity of sensitive information procured without a warrant". She pointed to cases like …
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