Aaron Rayshan Wells v. Texas

Fourth Amendment rights vary among circuits and state high courts, as well as intrajurisdictionally between Texas federal and Texas state courts, regarding “geofence” warrants. These warrants demand the digital location-history data of companies’ customers—here, Google users—without identifying a suspect. Compare United States v. Smith, 110 F.4th 817 (5th Cir. 2024), with, e.g., Pet. App. 1a-54a. Instead, law enforcement defines a temporal and geographical parameter regarding a crime scene and collects data for all users’ devices present within the geofence. Initial data returns are anonymized, but the typical three-step geofence warrant—like the one in petitioner’s case—gives advance authorization for increasingly invasive requests at the officer’s sole and judicially unsupervised discretion, culminating in disclosure of a user’s identifying information and, as here, even six months of IP history for devices that the officer selects from the initial returns. The Questions Presented are:

1. Does law enforcement’s collection of digital location-history data pursuant to geofence warrants like the one in petitioner’s case violate the Fourth Amendment?

2. Should the exclusionary rule apply to evidence derived from the geofence warrant?