Carpenter v. The United States

Issues 

The issue in the case was regarding the alleged violation of the fourth amendment. Carpenter was among four men who were arrested and charged with several robberies. The evidence against him came from the transactional records in his cell-phone. The information obtained included the call locations, the time of the calls, and date of the calls. Timothy Carpenter moved to the Court arguing that his Fourth Amendment rights had been breached by the FBI when it acquired the cell-site evidence and used it to charge him. 

Parties involved 

In this case, the petitioner is Timothy Ivory Carpenter. The respondent was the Unites States of America. It was decided by Roberts Court, under docket number 16-402. The petitioner’s advocate was Nathan Freed Wessler, whereas the respondent’s advocate was Michael R. Dreeben. 

Case’s path to the Court 

The petitioner, Timothy Carpenter, first filed the case in the district court. He moved to the district court to get an interpretation on whether the forceful obtaining of phone cellphone records of a user by the FBI without a search warrant and the subsequent use of both the movement and locations of users to charge them infringed on their Fourth Amendment rights. The district court denied the motion to suppress the FBI from using the cell phone records to suppress him. Next, he moved for the sixth circuit in the US Court of Appeal which rubberstamped the earlier decision made by the district court. It is at this juncture that the petitioner moved to the Supreme Court for interpretation. 

The decision by the Court 

The Court’s decision sided with the petitioner Timothy in a 5-4 majority rule read by Chief Justice John Roberts on Jun 22, 2018. The core argument by the majority rule was that the Fourth Amendment implicitly goes beyond just protecting the rights to property. Instead, it also reasonably expects that the right to privacy of the citizens will be respected. Though the majority decision acknowledges that the digital era has provided scenarios not anticipated when making these laws, the tracking of the movements of an individual along with their cell-phone site records might be far too intrusive and might set bad precedents. The Court’s majority ruling also decided that the third party doctrine only applies to voluntarily disclosed information. The Court, therefore, ruled that there is a need for a warrant to access information on cell-phone location. 

Dissenting opinions 

Four of the Court’s judges gave dissenting opinions. Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that only property should be used for Fourth Amendment cases and that cell-phone information was no different from all other business and personal records that the government acquired legally. For Justice Clarence Thomas, the more pertinent question was the owners of the searched property, rather than whether or not any search occurred. By taking this route, he argued that Carpenter would have no case since it was not his property. According to Justice Samuel Alito’s dissenting opinion, no search occurred. Instead, an order was given to obtain specific information. According to him, this is far less intrusive than an actual search. The fact that it occurred on another sphere makes the third party doctrine valid. Finally, Justice Gorsuch castigated the majority for their decision because they departed from the Fourth Amendment’s original understanding. 

Impact of the case 

The case which has a huge impact on how the FBI conducts its investigations on suspects. It extensively limits the FBI’s ability to unearth vital information on cell-phone records. For suspects, this is a win for them as it gives them higher levels of protection on their privacy. It also sets a precedent on the trajectory on future cases of interpretations on the Fourth Amendment brought before the Court.