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Carpenter v. United States

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Supreme Court of the United States
Carpenter v. United States
Term: 2017
Important Dates
Argument: November 29, 2017
Decided: June 22, 2018
Outcome
Sixth Circuit reversed
Vote
5 - 4
Majority
Chief Justice John G. Roberts • Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Stephen Breyer • Sonia Sotomayor • Elena Kagan
Dissenting
Anthony Kennedy • Clarence Thomas • Samuel Alito • Neil Gorsuch


Carpenter v. United States is a case argued during the October 2017 term of the U.S. Supreme Court. Argument in the case was held on November 29, 2017. The case came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

Legal scholars highlighted the potential impact of this case on data privacy rights. Professor Steve Vladeck, a Supreme Court analyst and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law, said regarding the case, "We all share tons of data with third parties on a daily basis, from our cell phone carriers to our credit card companies to our financial institutions and so on. For decades, the Supreme Court has held that, once we voluntarily share that information with these firms, the government will usually not need a warrant for that data, no matter how personal or private it may be ... In this case, it looks like the justices are interested in revisiting that reasoning -- perhaps with an eye toward how technological advancements have dramatically changed the privacy calculus."[1] Orin Kerr, the Fred C. Stevenson Research Professor at George Washington University, wrote, "It’s not an exaggeration to say that the future of surveillance law hinges on how the Supreme Court rules in the case."[2]

HIGHLIGHTS
  • The case: Based on information obtained from a different suspect's cell phone records, the FBI arrested Timothy Carpenter in connection with a string of armed robberies. The FBI did not obtain a warrant for the records. Instead, the FBI relied on the Stored Communications Act (SCA), which allows cell phone providers to disclose records under certain circumstances without a warrant. Carpenter moved to suppress the records before trial, arguing that the FBI's warrantless search of the records violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. A federal district court denied the motion to suppress, and Carpenter was convicted. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the convictions, holding that the use of the cell tower data did not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment and, as such, no warrant was required in order to use the data.
  • The issue: Under the Fourth Amendment, was the government required to obtain a warrant, based on probable cause, in order to obtain and use the cell tower evidence in this case?
  • The outcome: On a vote of 5 - 4, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the Sixth Circuit.[3]


    • You can review the lower court's opinion here.[4]

    Background

    In April of 2011, police arrested four men in connection with a string of armed robberies of stores in Michigan and Ohio. One of the suspects told police that other men had assisted in the robberies. The suspect forfeited his cell phone to FBI authorities, who examined the phone's call records for additional information. In May and June of 2011, relying on the Stored Communications Act (SCA), the FBI requested phone records from the suspect's phone. Under the SCA, telecommunication companies may disclose certain records if "specific and articulable facts show[] that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication . . . are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.”

    The FBI received the requested records. Based on the records, the FBI concluded that Timothy Carpenter's cell phone was in the vicinity of the robbed stores at the times of the robberies, and they arrested Carpenter. At trial, Carpenter moved to suppress the evidence obtained by police under the SCA-authorized judicial orders. He argued that the government could not obtain cellphone records without a warrant and that a warrantless search of cellphone records violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment. The trial judge, Judge Sean Cox of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, denied the motion. Carpenter was subsequently convicted.[4]

    Panel opinion

    Writing for a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit, Judge Raymond Kethledge upheld Carpenter's conviction. Kethledge agreed with the district court that the use of the cellphone data did not require a warrant or a showing of probable cause because the data was not subject to the Fourth Amendment. Kethledge relied on the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in Smith v. Maryland to substantiate his position. He wrote:

    “ Federal courts have long recognized a core distinction: although the content of personal communications is private, the information necessary to get those communications from point A to point B is not . . . In Smith, the Court held that the police’s installation of a pen register—a device that tracked the phone numbers a person dialed from his home phone—was not a search because the caller could not reasonably expect those numbers to remain private. 'Although [the caller’s] conduct may have been calculated to keep the contents of his conversation private, his conduct was not and could not have been calculated to preserve the privacy of the number he dialed.'. . . Today, the same distinction applies to internet communications . . . The business records here fall on the unprotected side of this line. Those records say nothing about the content of any calls. Instead the records include routing information, which the wireless providers gathered in the ordinary course of business. Carriers necessarily track their customers’ phones across different cell-site sectors to connect and maintain their customers’ calls. And carriers keep records of these data to find weak spots in their network and to determine whether roaming charges apply, among other purposes. Thus, the cell-site data—like mailing addresses, phone numbers, and IP addresses—are information that facilitates personal communications, rather than part of the content of those communications themselves. The government’s collection of business records containing these data therefore is not a search.[4][5] ”


    Concurring opinion

    Writing an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment in part, Judge Jane Stranch stated that while she agreed the motion to suppress the cell data evidence was correctly denied by the district court, there were outstanding Fourth Amendment concerns raised by the case that must be addressed going forward. She wrote,

    “ I do not see this case primarily as a challenge to the constitutionality of the SCA’s provisions that authorize the government to seek secured communications through either an order or a warrant. The question before us is one that courts routinely answer: did the search at issue require a warrant? . . . Determining the parameters of the Fourth Amendment is the task of the judiciary . . . The runaway pace of technological development makes this task more difficult. But the job is ours nonetheless and the circumstances before us lead me to believe that we have more work to do to determine the best methods for assessing the application of the Fourth Amendment in the context of new technology.[6][5] ”


    Petitioners' challenge

    Carpenter, the petitioner, challenged the holding of the Sixth Circuit. Carpenter argued that the government's use of cell-site data at his criminal trials constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment and, accordingly, the government was obligated to demonstrate probable cause and to get a search warrant to both obtain and use the data.[7]

    Certiorari granted

    On September 26, 2016, Timothy Ivory Carpenter and Timothy Michael Sanders, the petitioners, initiated proceedings in the Supreme Court of the United States in filing a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Sixth Circuit. The U.S. Supreme Court granted the request for certiorari on June 5, 2017. Argument in the case was held on November 29, 2017.[8]

    Question presented

    Question presented:

    "Whether the warrantless seizure and search of historical cell phone records revealing the location and movements of a cell phone user over the course of 127 days is permitted by the Fourth Amendment."[8]

    Audio

    • Audio of oral argument:[9]



    Transcript

    • Transcript of oral argument:[10]

    Outcome

    Decision

    On a vote of 5 - 4, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the Sixth Circuit.[3]

    Majority opinion

    Chief Justice John Roberts authored the opinion for the majority, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.[3]

    Roberts wrote that the data at issue in this case "does not fit neatly under existing precedents. Instead, requests for cell-site records lie at the intersection of two lines of cases, both of which inform our understanding of the privacy interests at stake." First, he continued, was the line of cases that addressed "a person's expectation of privacy in his physical location and movements." Second was the line of cases know as the third-party doctrine, which dictates that "a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties." Where a third party holds information a person voluntarily submitted, "the Government is typically free to obtain such information from the recipient without triggering Fourth Amendment protections."[3]

    In this case, Carpenter's cell phone location records were in the cell company's possession because Carpenter voluntarily used his phone. But Roberts concluded that the fact that the records were maintained by a third party did not end the Fourth Amendment inquiry in this case. Moreover, he continued, Carpenter had a privacy interest in his location information. Therefore, "The location information obtained from Carpenter's wireless carriers was the product of a search."[3]

    “ Prior to the digital age, law enforcement might have pursued a suspect for a brief stretch, but doing so for any extended period of time was difficult and costly and therefore rarely undertaken. For that reason, society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, in the main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period. Allowing government access to cell-site records contravenes that expectation . . . This case is not about 'using a phone' or a person’s movement at a particular time. It is about a detailed chronicle of a person’s physical presence compiled every day, every moment, over several years.[3][11][5] ”


    Roberts wrote that the rationale of voluntary information release that supported the third-party doctrine did not apply to cell phone location data. That data, he said, "is not truly 'shared' as one normally understands the term," because cell phones "are such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that carrying one is indispensable to participation in modern society" and because the information is recorded "without any affirmative act on the part of the user beyond powering up." He continued, "Apart from disconnecting the phone from the network, there is no way to avoid leaving behind a trail of location data. As a result, in no meaningful sense does the user voluntarily assume[] the risk of turning over a comprehensive dossier of his physical movements."[3][12]

    Roberts concluded, "The Government's acquisition of the cell-site records was a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment . . . [and] the Government must generally obtain a warrant supported by probable cause." Because there was no warrant for the cell phone location data used by the government in this case, the search was not authorized.[3]

    Roberts emphasized that the court's decision "is a narrow one," not intended to reach any other type of data search.[3]

    Dissent by Justice Kennedy

    Justice Anthony Kennedy dissented from the court's opinion and judgment, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Kennedy argued that the court's ruling "puts needed, reasonable, accepted, lawful, and congressionally authorized criminal investigations at serious risk in serious cases, often when law enforcement seeks to prevent the threat of violent crimes. And it places undue restrictions on the lawful and necessary enforcement powers exercised not only by the Federal Government, but also by law enforcement in every State and locality throughout the Nation."[3]

    Kennedy argued that cell phone location data obtained from a phone company "are no different from the many other kinds of business records the Government has a lawful right to obtain." He concluded, "Customers like petitioner do not own, possess, control, or use the records, and for that reason have no reasonable expectation that they cannot be disclosed pursuant to lawful compulsory process."[3]

    “ This case should be resolved by interpreting accepted property principles as the baseline for reasonable expectations of privacy. Here the Government did not search anything over which Carpenter could assert ownership or control. Instead, it issued a court-authorized subpoena to a third party to disclose information it alone owned and controlled. That should suffice to resolve this case.[3][5] ”


    Dissent by Justice Thomas

    Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the court's opinion and ruling, joining Justice Kennedy's dissent and also writing separately. Thomas believed the court had mistakenly focused on Carpenter's rights when the information at issue did not belong to Carpenter. Thomas also argued that the court should not have relied on the reasonable expectation of privacy test, which he argued should not be used in Fourth Amendment cases.[3]

    “ This case should not turn on “whether” a search occurred. It should turn, instead, on whose property was searched . . . By obtaining the cell-site records of MetroPCS and Sprint, the Government did not search Carpenter’s property. He did not create the records, he does not maintain them, he cannot control them, and he cannot destroy them. Neither the terms of his contracts nor any provision of law makes the records his. The records belong to MetroPCS and Sprint . . . The more fundamental problem with the Court’s opinion, however, is its use of the 'reasonable expectation of privacy' test, which was first articulated by Justice Harlan in Katz v. United States. The Katz test has no basis in the text or history of the Fourth Amendment. And, it invites courts to make judgments about policy, not law. Until we confront the problems with this test, Katz will continue to distort Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.[3][5] ”


    Dissent by Justice Alito

    Justice Samuel Alito dissented from the court's opinion and ruling, joining Justice Kennedy's dissent and also writing separately. Justice Thomas joined Alito's dissent. Like Thomas, Alito argued that the court majority had mischaracterized the property at issue, arguing that it was the phone company's information and not Carpenter's. He argued that the government's review of the phone company's records--records the company had turned over as a result of a court order--was not a search at all.[3]

    “ First, the Court ignores the basic distinction between an actual search (dispatching law enforcement officers to enter private premises and root through private papers and effects) and an order merely requiring a party to look through its own records and produce specified documents. The former, which intrudes on personal privacy far more deeply, requires probable cause; the latter does not. Treating an order to produce like an actual search, as today’s decision does, is revolutionary. It violates both the original understanding of the Fourth Amendment and more than a century of Supreme Court precedent . . . The Court’s holding is based on the premise that the order issued in this case was an actual 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, but that premise is inconsistent with the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment and with more than a century of precedent.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; invalid names, e.g. too many[5] ”


    Reviewing the origins of Fourth Amendment law, Alito wrote, "The Fourth Amendment does not apply to the compulsory production of documents, a practice that involves neither any physical intrusion into private space nor any taking of property by agents of the state." He argued that legislation already prohibited phone companies from misusing phone records and that legislation was the proper way to address any privacy concerns the case raised.[3]

    Dissent by Justice Gorsuch

    Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented from the majority's opinion and ruling, writing separately. Gorsuch wrote that he believed the majority's dismissal of the rationale underlying the third-party doctrine was an "implicit but unmistakable conclusion." Gorsuch argued that the tests the court applied were fundamentally flawed and should be done away with. He argued that the question should be only whether a person held a property interest in the information. In this case, Gorsuch continued, customers' interests in cell phone location records "might even rise to the level of a property right." However, he wrote, that argument had not been raised.[3]

    “ The problem is that we do not know anything more. Before the district court and court of appeals, Mr. Carpenter pursued only a Katz “reasonable expectations” argument. He did not invoke the law of property or any analogies to the common law, either there or in his petition for certiorari. Even in his merits brief before this Court, Mr. Carpenter’s discussion of his positive law rights in cell-site data was cursory. He offered no analysis, for example, of what rights state law might provide him in addition to those supplied by §222. In these circumstances, I cannot help but conclude—reluctantly—that Mr. Carpenter forfeited perhaps his most promising line of argument.[3][5] ”


    Text of the opinion

    See also

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ CNN, "Supreme Court to weigh in on digital privacy rights," June 5, 2017
    2. ↑ The Washington Post, "Supreme Court agrees to hear ‘Carpenter v. United States,’ the Fourth Amendment historical cell-site case," June 5, 2017
    3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 United States Supreme Court, "Carpenter v. United States Opinion," June 22, 2018
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, United States of America v. Timothy Ivory Carpenter, Timothy Michael Sanders April 13, 2016
    5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    6. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named opinion
    7. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, Carpenter et al. v. United States of America - Petition for certiorari, September 26, 2016
    8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Supreme Court of the United States, Carpenter v. United States, June 5, 2017
    9. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, Carpenter v. United States, argued November 29, 2017
    10. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, Timothy Ivory Carpenter v. United States, argued November 29, 2017
    11. ↑ Quotations and citations omitted.
    12. ↑ Quotations and citations omitted.
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