MN: Geofence warrant was not particular

The Minnesota Constitution doesn’t categorically prohibit geofence warrants, but here the warrant was not particular as to all those swept up. Reversed and remanded to the court of appeals (rev’g State v. Contreras-Sanchez, 5 N.W.3d 151 (Minn. App. 2024)). State v. Contreras-Sanchez, 2026 Minn. LEXIS 172 (Apr. 15, 2026):

S Y L L A B U S

1. Because cell phone users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their location data stored by Google, the government conducted a search under Article I, Section 10, of the Minnesota Constitution when it accessed a cell phone user’s location data stored by Google.
2. Geofence warrants are not categorically prohibited general warrants under the Minnesota Constitution.
3. Because the warrant application in this case established a fair probability that Google’s servers would contain evidence of a crime, there was probable cause to issue the geofence warrant; this geofence warrant did not require a probable cause nexus for every person within the geofence.
4. A geofence warrant is insufficiently particular under the Minnesota Constitution when it gives law enforcement unchecked discretion to determine which device identification numbers inside the geofence will be subject to an additional search for more location information.

Reversed and remanded.

. . .

We conclude that the Minnesota Constitution does not provide the government unrestricted access to a person’s location data stored by Google and that the warrant here failed to satisfy the particularity requirement. Because we conclude that Contreras-Sanchez’s rights under the Minnesota Constitution were violated, we have no need to address whether this warrant satisfied the requirements under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Specifically, we conclude that the government conducted a search under the Minnesota Constitution when it accessed Contreras-Sanchez’s location data stored by Google, which holds information about intimate and deeply private aspects of a person’s life: their familial, religious, political, health care, and other highly sensitive activities and relationships. We acknowledge, however, that geofence warrants are a useful tool for law enforcement and reject the notion that geofence warrants are per se unconstitutional general warrants. We also conclude that the geofence warrant here was supported by probable cause. Finally, we hold that the geofence warrant in this case was not constitutionally particular, because it did not require a judge to assess law enforcement’s decision to use data from a narrowly defined (both in time and geography) geofence warrant to significantly expand the warrant’s geographic and temporal scope. Had there been judicial review of the reasonableness of that expanded search, the result here may have been different.

Because the court of appeals held the geofence warrant was sufficiently particular, it did not decide whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies in this context or whether the error was harmless. The parties did not ask for review of these issues in their petition to our court. Consequently, we reverse the court of appeals and remand to that court to consider the merits of issues it did not reach.