Supreme Court Digest: April 15, 2026

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Criminal

Search Warrants

Expectation of Privacy

In this case the court was asked for the first time to consider the constitutionality of a geofence warrant, a type of warrant that allows law enforcement to obtain information from a tech company regarding the presence of customer devices, including cell phones, located within selected geographic coordinates. Defendant was convicted of second-degree intentional murder. Law enforcement connected defendant to the crime using data gathered under a geofence warrant. Defendant appealed his conviction, arguing that the geofence warrant violated the United States and Minnesota Constitutions. The court of appeals affirmed his conviction.

The Supreme Court held that (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; and (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.

A22-1579 State v. Contreras-Sanchez (Court of Appeals)