On October 2, 2026, a New Jersey state appellate court held that evidence obtained through two geofence search warrants should have been suppressed.[1] The decision in State v. Hobbs is an early application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 29, 2026 decision in Chatrie v. United States, which held that obtaining cell phone location data from a technology company is a Fourth Amendment search requiring a valid warrant.[2] Hobbs offers an early indication of how courts might fill the gaps that Chatrie left open and signals that the post-Chatrie warrant requirement may be a meaningful constraint for law enforcement when seeking users’ electronic location records.
Hobbs’s Application of Chatrie
In Chatrie, the Supreme Court held that an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her cell phone location information even if that information is held by a third party.[3] As a result, the Court concluded that law enforcement officers conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they obtained a record of the defendant’s movements from a technology company’s location history using a geofence warrant.[4] Chatrie left certain questions unanswered: the Court declined to decide whether the three-step geofence warrant at issue satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and particularity requirements, remanding that question to the Fourth Circuit and leaving lower courts to develop the governing standards.[5] Courts have begun applying Chatrie, and Hobbs offers an early look at how courts may decide whether a geofence warrant passes constitutional scrutiny.[6] In Hobbs, a detective obtained two geofence warrants seeking location history data for devices near the sites of six armed robberies of gas stations, for a thirty-minute window around the time of each robbery. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained through the geofence warrants, arguing principally that the government lacked probable cause to obtain the warrants. The trial court denied the motion, reasoning that, given the “ubiquity of cell[ ]phones” and the Bluetooth and GPS capabilities of the car used in the robberies, it was reasonable to infer the suspects had carried cell phones that provided location data.[7]
The Appellate Division, applying Chatrie, reversed. The court first recognized that Chatrie confirmed that probable cause is required to obtain a geofence warrant.[8] The Appellate Division then rejected the lower court’s reasoning that probable cause existed, stating that “[t]he fact that cell phones are common, and many people always carry them, does not by itself establish probable cause” for a geofence warrant because otherwise “police could seek geofence warrants in virtually every criminal investigation,” which “would drain the probable-cause requirement of meaning.”[9] The court concluded that the government’s probable cause affidavit described how cell phones and location history worked, but did not establish a nexus between the suspects and the servers of the company to which the warrant was directed. To establish such a link, the court observed, the issuing judge would have had to “assume [the] defendant had a smartphone, carried it during the robberies, had a[n] [account with the provider of the service for which location data was recorded], had opted in to [location history] and location reporting, had enabled the relevant location settings, had signed in to that . . . account on the phone, and had done all of those things at the time of the robberies”; however, this chain of assumptions amounted to the kind of “hunches” and “bare suspicion” that cannot support probable cause.[10] Consequently, the court reversed the lower court’s decision and remanded for further proceedings.
Notably, the Appellate Division did identify at least two ways the government’s probable cause affidavit could have been strengthened. First, the affidavit could have included “facts supporting an inference the suspects used cell phones to communicate with each other during, or immediately preceding or following, the commission of the robberies.”[11] Second, the affidavit could have “explained, based on [the officer’s] training and experience, that multiple-suspect robberies of this kind typically involve cell phones for mapping purposes.”[12]
Key Takeaways
Hobbs offers an early view of how lower courts may resolve the questions unanswered by Chatrie, and, therefore, provides initial guidance to companies handling geofence warrants or other data requests from government actors.
- The geofence warrant requirement has teeth. Hobbs demonstrates that, after Chatrie, courts may scrutinize the factual basis for geofence and other, similar “reverse” warrants (such as cell-tower-dump warrants) closely rather than deferring to the issuing judge, and that suppression is an available remedy.
- Courts are extending Chatrie’s protections to other investigative techniques. Although Hobbs addressed whether a geofence warrant was supported by probable cause, other courts have started to apply Chatrie’s logic to hold that other technologically advanced investigative techniques constitute searches under the Fourth Amendment. For example, courts applying Chatrie have held that obtaining information from cell-tower dumps,[13] cell-site simulators,[14] and automated license plate readers[15] constitutes a Fourth Amendment search.
- Companies responding to law enforcement requests should monitor the developing doctrine. Companies that respond to law enforcement requests—particularly “reverse” warrants for geofences and keyword searches—should monitor post-Chatrie decisions, such as Hobbs, and consider any applicable updates to their workflows and procedures.
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[1] State v. Hobbs, No. A-2010-24 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Oct. 2, 2026) (per curiam).
[2] Chatrie v. United States, 146 S. Ct. 2193 (2026). For a more in-depth discussion of the Supreme Court’s decision, see Paul, Weiss, Client Memorandum, Supreme Court “Geofence” Ruling Expands Constitutional Privacy Protection for Electronic Records (Aug. 5, 2026), available here.
[3] Chatrie, 146 S. Ct. at 2208–09, 2212–15.
[4] Id. at 2217.
[5] Id. at 2215–16. The case is still pending before the Fourth Circuit on remand, with oral argument scheduled for December 9, 2026. See Oral Argument Notification, United States v. Chatrie, No. 22-4489 (4th Cir. Oct. 9, 2026), ECF No. 189.
[6] Other courts have applied Chatrie to evaluate other types of warrants. See In re Four Applications for Search Warrants Seeking Info. Associated With Particular Cellular Towers, No. 25-cr-38, 2026 WL 2260371, at *8 (S.D. Miss. Aug. 5, 2026) (tower dump); Andrews v. Balt. City Police Dep’t, No. 18-1953, 2026 WL 2872021, at *9 (4th Cir. Sept. 24, 2026) (cell-site simulator); United States v. Kyle, No. 26-cr-189, 2026 WL 2958728, at *14 (N.D. Okla. Oct. 1, 2026) (automated license plate reader).
[7] Hobbs, slip op. at 10–11.
[8] Id. at 12–14 (first citing State v. Earls, 214 N.J. 564, 568, 587 (2013); and then citing Chatrie, 146 S. Ct. at 2217).
[9] Id. at 16.
[10] Id. at 17–18 (quoting State v. Missak, 476 N.J. Super. 302, 321 (App. Div. 2023)).
[11] Id.
[12] Id.
[13] In re Four Applications, 2026 WL 2260371, at *8.
[14] Andrews, 2026 WL 2872021, at *9.
[15] Kyle, 2026 WL 2958728, at *14.
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