United States v. Graham, 846 F. Supp. 2d 384 (D. Md. 2012), was a Maryland District Court case in which the Court held that historical cell site location data is not protected by the Fourth Amendment. Reacting to the precedent established by the recent Supreme Court case United States v. Jones in conjunction with the application of the third party doctrine, Judge Richard D. Bennett found that "information voluntarily disclosed to a third party ceases to enjoy Fourth Amendment protection" because that information no longer belongs to the consumer, but rather to the telecommunications company that handles the transmissions records. The historical cell site location data is then not subject to the privacy protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment standard of probable cause, but rather to the Stored Communications Act, which governs the voluntary or compelled disclosure of stored electronic communications records. A three judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court on the Fourth Amendment issue in August 2015, but the full court en banc upheld the district court in May 2016. Its validity has grave doubt after the Supreme Court of the United States decided Carpenter v. United States in 2018.
Background With the increase in usage of cellular phones by the public, the government turned to the exploitation of cellular phone technology to track the movements of suspects. This phenomenon led to suits by defendants who claimed that use of such technology to track their movements amounted to an invasion of their privacy. The courts were divided over whether such tracking amounted to intruding in a person's personal sphere. Some courts decided that such tracking to obtain cell site location data implicated the Fourth Amendment, and applied the 'probable cause' standard stipulated under the Fourth Amendment to such cases- In re Application of the United States [809 F. Supp. 2d 113 (E.D.N.Y. 2011)], In re Application of the United States [747 F. Supp. 2d 827 (S.D. Tex. 2010)]. These courts however also clarified that the Fourth Amendment is not implicated if the request for acquisition of cell site location information is for a short period of time. Other cases were decided in favor of applying the 'specific and articulable facts' standard under the Stored Communications Act since the courts believed that such acquisition of historical cell site location data did not implicate the Fourth Amendment- United States v. Dye (N.D. Ohio Apr. 27, 2011), United States v. Velasquez (N.D. Cal Oct, 22, 2010), In re Application of the United States for Historical Cell Site Data, 724 F.3d 600 (5th Cir. 2013).
Facts The Defendants, Aaron Graham and Eric Jordan, were charged for a series of armed robberies of commercial entities including a Burger King restaurant and a McDonald's restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland on February 5, 2011. Ten minutes after the McDonald's robbery, the defendants were found and arrested by the police and, upon request, provided their cell phone numbers to the officers at the scene. Two cell phones were recovered from the Defendant's car, which matched the numbers that the Defendants had provided earlier. Before Baltimore Detective Christopher Woerner searched the contents of the phones, he requested search warrants for the devices from the Circuit Court. On March 25, 2011, Magistrate Judge Susan K. Gauvey granted the government's request to order Sprint/Nextel, Inc. to "disclose to the government 'the identification and address of cellular towers (cell site locations) related to the use of' the Defendants' cellular telephones" pursuant to the Stored Communications Act. The order requested the disclosure of geographic data for August 10–15, 2010; September 18–20, 2010; January 21–23, 2011; and February 4–5, 2011 dates important for linking the defendants to the robberies. Gauvey determined that the goal of linking the suspects to the robberies fit the standard of the government offering "specific and articulable facts." On July 15, 2011, the government was granted a second order from Magistrate Judge Paul W. Grimm for the cell site location for the period of July 1, 2010 through February 6, 2011. Spring/Nextel, Inc. provided the data to the government pursuant to this order. On December 8, 2011, Judge Bennett of the District Court held a hearing to determine if the Cellular Phone Data and Historical Cell Site Location Data should be granted the motion to suppress at the Defendant's request.
Court Proceedings
Defendants' Claims The Defendants argued that the historical cell site location data acquired without a warrant was in violation of the Fourth Amendment because the "length of time and extent of the cellular phone monitoring intruded on the Defendants' expectation of privacy." The Defendants claimed that the data granted to the government allowed the "government to paint an intimate picture of the Defendants' whereabouts over an extensive period of time". They contended that the implications of this technology allow the government to retroactively surveil a suspect through a device he carries with him twenty-four hours a day, even to constitutionally protected places such as the home.
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