Supreme Court of the United States · Decided September 4, 2026 · ___ U.S. ___ (2026)
The Court denied certiorari, leaving intact a circuit split over whether law enforcement's warrantless acquisition of historical cell-site location data violates the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.
Petitioner was convicted after prosecutors introduced seven months of historical cell-site location information obtained from his wireless carrier without a warrant, relying instead on a court order issued under the Stored Communications Act. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the conviction, holding the third-party doctrine permitted the disclosure. The Sixth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion on similar facts in 2024, creating a split among the courts of appeals.
The order denying certiorari carries no opinion, as is customary. Justice Álvarez, joined by Justice Park, issued a statement respecting the denial, noting the Court's 2018 decision in Carpenter v. United States "left open exactly the question this petition presents" and that the Court should grant review "in an appropriate case with a fuller record."
The denial leaves the circuit split in place: defendants in the Sixth Circuit retain a suppression remedy unavailable to defendants in the Ninth Circuit and elsewhere, on materially identical facts. Practitioners litigating digital-privacy suppression motions should expect the issue to return to the Court within the next several terms.