Bank Robber Challenges Conviction Based on His Cellphone's Location Data
Source: Slashdot
Background
Okello Chatrie’s cellphone gave him away. He made off with $195,000 from a bank robbery in suburban Richmond, Virginia, and eluded police until investigators turned to a powerful technological tool that erected a virtual fence and allowed them to collect the location history of cellphone users near the crime scene.
Legal Issues
Civil libertarians argue that geofence warrants amount to fishing expeditions that subject many innocent people to searches of private records merely because their cellphones happened to be in the vicinity of a crime. A Supreme Court ruling in favor of the technique could “unleash a much broader wave of similar reverse searches,” according to law professors who study digital surveillance.
In Chatrie’s case, the geofence warrant revived an investigation that had stalled. After determining that Chatrie was near the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian around the time it was robbed in May 2019, police obtained a search warrant for his home. They found nearly $100,000 in cash, including bills wrapped in bands signed by the bank teller.
Chatrie pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison. His lawyers appealed, arguing that none of the evidence should have been used because the warrant violated his privacy by allowing authorities to gather location histories of people near the bank without any specific evidence linking them to the robbery.
Prosecutors countered that Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy because he had voluntarily opted into Google’s location‑history service. A federal judge agreed that the search violated Chatrie’s rights but allowed the evidence to be admitted, finding that the officer who applied for the warrant reasonably believed he was acting properly.
Current Status
The Supreme Court will decide whether geofence warrants violate the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches. Chatrie’s appeal is one of two cases being argued before the Court.
Report originally shared from the Associated Press.