Carpenter v. United States
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 22, 2018 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 22, 2018
- Docket
- No. 16-402
- Argued
- November 29, 2017
- Term
- October Term 2017
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Roberts
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Roberts (wrote), Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan
- Dissenting
- Justice Kennedy (wrote), Justice Thomas (wrote), Justice Alito (wrote), Justice Gorsuch (wrote)
Oral argument transcript and advocates
Opinion excerpt
(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2017 1 Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus CARPENTER v. UNITED STATES CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT No. 16–402. Argued November 29, 2017—Decided June 22, 2018 Cell phones perform their wide and growing variety of functions by con- tinuously connecting to a set of radio antennas called “cell sites.” Each time a phone connects to a cell site, it generates a time-stamped record known as cell-site location information (CSLI). Wireless carri- ers collect and store this information for their own business purposes. Here, after the FBI identified the cell phone numbers of several rob- bery suspects, prosecutors were granted court orders to obtain the suspects’ cell phone records under the Stored Communications Act. Wireless carriers produced CSLI for petitioner Timothy Carpenter’s phone, and the Government was able to obtain 12,898 location points cataloging Carpenter’s movements over 127 days—an average of 101 data points per day.…
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