Carpenter v. United States (Crim Pro)
138 S. Ct. 2206 (2018)
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Rule of Law:
The government's acquisition of historical cell-site location information (CSLI) is a search under the Fourth Amendment, and as such, generally requires a warrant supported by probable cause.
Facts:
- In 2011, police investigated a series of armed robberies at Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in Michigan and Ohio.
- Police arrested four suspects, one of whom confessed to the robberies.
- The confessing suspect identified Timothy Carpenter as an accomplice and provided the FBI with Carpenter's cell phone number.
- Carpenter's cell phone, in its normal operation, continuously connected to cell sites, generating time-stamped location records known as cell-site location information (CSLI).
- Carpenter's wireless carriers, MetroPCS and Sprint, stored this CSLI as part of their business records.
- The stored CSLI chronicled Carpenter's movements over a 127-day period, creating 12,898 separate location points.
Procedural Posture:
- The government applied to federal magistrate judges for court orders under the Stored Communications Act to obtain Carpenter's cell-site records.
- The magistrate judges granted the orders, compelling Carpenter's wireless carriers to produce 127 days of his CSLI.
- Carpenter was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
- Prior to trial, Carpenter filed a motion to suppress the CSLI data, arguing its seizure without a warrant supported by probable cause violated the Fourth Amendment.
- The District Court denied Carpenter's motion to suppress.
- Carpenter was convicted at trial, where the CSLI data was used as evidence against him.
- Carpenter, as appellant, appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, challenging the denial of his suppression motion.
- The Sixth Circuit affirmed the conviction, holding that Carpenter lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the CSLI because he had voluntarily shared it with his carriers, placing it under the third-party doctrine.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Sixth Circuit's decision.
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Issue:
Does the government's warrantless acquisition of historical cell-site location information from a wireless carrier, revealing a person's physical movements over an extended period, constitute a search that violates the Fourth Amendment?
Opinions:
Majority - Chief Justice Roberts
Yes, the government's warrantless acquisition of historical CSLI constitutes a search that violates the Fourth Amendment. An individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of their physical movements as captured through CSLI. The Court declined to extend the third-party doctrine from Smith v. Maryland and United States v. Miller, which held that a person has no expectation of privacy in information voluntarily turned over to third parties. The Court reasoned that CSLI is qualitatively different from the bank records in Miller or the dialed numbers in Smith. CSLI provides an intimate, comprehensive, and retrospective chronicle of a person's movements, revealing 'the privacies of life.' Furthermore, sharing location data with a wireless carrier is not truly voluntary, as cell phones are an indispensable feature of modern life and log location data automatically without any affirmative act by the user. Accessing seven days or more of historical CSLI is a Fourth Amendment search, and the government must therefore generally obtain a warrant supported by probable cause.
Dissenting - Justice Kennedy
No, the government's acquisition of CSLI does not violate the Fourth Amendment. This case is controlled by the third-party doctrine established in Smith and Miller. Cell-site records are business records created, owned, and controlled by the wireless carriers, not the customer. Carpenter could not assert ownership or possession of the records and therefore had no reasonable expectation of privacy in them. The majority's decision creates an unprincipled and unworkable distinction between CSLI and other third-party records like financial and telephone data, which have less Fourth Amendment protection despite often being more sensitive. This new rule will frustrate legitimate and vital law enforcement operations.
Dissenting - Justice Thomas
No, the acquisition of CSLI did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The 'reasonable expectation of privacy' test from Katz v. United States is an illegitimate framework with no basis in the text or history of the Fourth Amendment. The proper analysis should be based on property rights, focusing on whose 'persons, houses, papers, and effects' were searched. The CSLI records were the property of the wireless carriers, not Carpenter. Therefore, the government's acquisition of those records did not search Carpenter's property and did not implicate his Fourth Amendment rights.
Dissenting - Justice Alito
No, the government's actions did not violate the Fourth Amendment for two primary reasons. First, an order to produce documents, like the one used here, is functionally a subpoena and is fundamentally different from an actual physical search; historical precedent does not require probable cause for such orders. Treating a document production order like a physical search is a revolutionary act that threatens to disrupt many legitimate investigative tools, like grand jury subpoenas. Second, the Fourth Amendment protects an individual's rights in their own property, not the property of third parties. The cell-site records are the business records of the wireless carriers, and Carpenter cannot assert a Fourth Amendment right to object to the search of a third party's property.
Dissenting - Justice Gorsuch
No, the acquisition of the records as presented did not violate the Fourth Amendment, but the underlying legal framework is flawed. The third-party doctrine of Smith and Miller is wrong, but so is the Katz 'reasonable expectation of privacy' test that the majority attempts to apply. A more traditional approach rooted in property law and positive law should be used. Under this approach, Carpenter might have had a cognizable legal interest in his data, similar to a bailment, especially given statutes like the Stored Communications Act. However, Carpenter forfeited this argument by exclusively relying on the Katz test, forcing the court to rule on that flawed basis.
Analysis:
This landmark decision significantly curtails the third-party doctrine, establishing that certain categories of sensitive digital information held by third parties are protected by the Fourth Amendment. By recognizing a reasonable expectation of privacy in the 'whole of [a person's] physical movements,' the Court adapted constitutional privacy protections to the realities of the digital age. The ruling requires law enforcement to meet the higher standard of probable cause for a warrant to access long-term CSLI, rather than the lower 'reasonable grounds' standard of the Stored Communications Act. This decision will impact government investigations relying on digital records and will likely influence future cases concerning other types of sensitive, third-party data.
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