E.D.Mo. sustains geofence warrant

Noting Chatrie is pending and that the Eighth Circuit hasn’t ruled, but has in something close, the court denies suppression of a geofence warrant. United States v. Washington, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37462 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 4, 2026)*:

In the context of the present record, the Search Warrant resembles more of a timing advance data, or tower dump, type of search warrant as addressed in James rather than the geofence warrant suggested by Defendants and challenged in Chatrie, Smith, and Davis. Indeed, the record here is devoid of any circumstances demonstrating otherwise. Like the investigators’ warrants in James, Detective Boester’s Search Warrant sought cellular tower data so that he could simply compare numbers that connected to the identified cell towers during the stated time frames. In fact, he specifically stated that data and records from the three requested areas would be used by law enforcement “to compare those numbers to known numbers of potential subjects that may be developed during the ongoing investigation.” (Ex. 1)

Moreover, like the warrants in James, the Search Warrant lacks any mention of a three-step process of a Google Sensorvault geofence warrant. The record is wanting of any showing that the Search Warrant requires a provider to search through each of its accounts in something similar to Google’s Sensorvault, which contains 592 million accounts, to locate responsive records. See Smith, 110 F.4th at 824. Additionally, the record does not demonstrate that the Search Warrant is a general warrant leaving “the question of whose data to search and seize almost entirely up to the discretion of the executing officer’s discretion of law enforcement.”

Rather, the Search Warrant here, like the warrants in James and unlike a general warrant, established probable cause and was sufficiently particular. First, under the totality of the circumstances and looking only at the information found within the four corners of the Affidavit, the state court judge certainly had a substantial basis for finding probable cause to issue the Search Warrant. For example, the Affidavit expressed that the state of the victim’s body, in rigor mortis with lividity on her back, was consistent with the victim being at that location for a period of time and suggested that she had possibly been killed the night before. The Affidavit also described the nature of the crime in detail, including the different whereabouts of the victim based upon her cell phone records, during the time period leading to up her death. The Affidavit further explained why cellular tower records would help law enforcement identify the perpetrator(s) because, in the affiant’s training and experience, a criminal’s cell phone connects to a nearby tower. The Affidavit asserted that investigators could discover this connection by examining the various cellular providers’ records.