Carpenter v. United States

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Carpenter v. United States

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Conference of May 16, 2019

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
16-402	6th Cir.	Nov 29, 2017 Tr.Aud.	Jun 22, 2018	5-4	Roberts	OT 2017

Holding: The government’s acquisition of Timothy Carpenter’s cell-site records from his wireless carriers was a Fourth Amendment search; the government did not obtain a warrant supported by probable cause before acquiring those records.

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 5-4, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts on June 22, 2018. Justice Kennedy filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Thomas and Alito joined. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Thomas joined. Justice Gorsuch filed a dissenting opinion.

The Annual: OT2017 in Review (First Mondays)
OT2017 #30: "Most Ambitious Crossovers" (First Mondays)
Opinion analysis: Court holds that police will generally need a warrant for sustained cellphone location information (Updated) (Amy Howe)
A "view" from the courtroom: "Some good and hard thinking on all sides" (Mark Walsh)
OT2017 #9: "Peak SG" (First Mondays)
OT2017 #8: "Bespoke but Blank" (First Mondays)
Argument analysis: Drawing a line on privacy for cellphone records, but where? (Amy Howe)
OT2017 #7: “Keys to a Valet” (First Mondays)
Argument preview: The justices return to cellphones and the Fourth Amendment (Amy Howe)
In Recess #3: "Third Class Webelo" (First Mondays)
Symposium: Carpenter and the eyewitness rule (Orin Kerr)
Symposium: Millions of tiny constables – Time to set the record straight on the Fourth Amendment and location-data privacy (Alan Butler)
Symposium: Will the Fourth Amendment protect 21st-century data? The court confronts the third-party doctrine (Jennifer Lynch)
Symposium: A defense of the doctrine (David LaBahn)
Symposium: Justices poised to consider, or reconsider, Fourth Amendment doctrines as they assess the scope of privacy in a digital age (John Castellano)
Symposium: Granular analysis versus doctrine in Carpenter (Jim Harper)
The justices return to cellphones and the Fourth Amendment: In Plain English (Amy Howe)
Justices to tackle cellphone data case next term (Amy Howe)
Petition of the day (Kate Howard)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Sep 26 2016	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due October 28, 2016)
Oct 21 2016	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including November 28, 2016.
Oct 28 2016	Brief amici curiae of Electronic Frontier Foundation, et al. filed.
Oct 28 2016	Brief amicus curiae of Cato Institute filed.
Nov 21 2016	Order further extending time to file response to petition to and including December 28, 2016.
Dec 15 2016	Order further extending time to file response to petition to and including January 27, 2016.
Jan 27 2017	Brief of respondent United States in opposition filed.
Feb 10 2017	Reply of petitioner Timothy Ivory Carpenter filed.
Feb 15 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of March 3, 2017.
Feb 23 2017	Rescheduled.
Mar 22 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 13, 2017.
Apr 17 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 21, 2017.
Apr 24 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 28, 2017.
May 08 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 11, 2017.
May 15 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 18, 2017.
May 22 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 25, 2017.
May 30 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of June 1, 2017.
Jun 05 2017	Petition GRANTED.
Jun 22 2017	The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including August 7, 2017.
Jun 22 2017	The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including September 25, 2017.
Jul 11 2017	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs in support of either party or neither party received from counsel for the petitioner.
Jul 12 2017	Motion for leave to proceed further herein in forma pauperis filed by petitioner Timothy I. Carpenter.
Jul 12 2017	Motion to appoint counsel filed by petitioner Timothy I. Carpenter.
Jul 26 2017	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs in support of either or neither party received from counsel for the respondent.
Aug 02 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 9/25/2017.
Aug 07 2017	Joint appendix filed.
Aug 07 2017	Brief of petitioner Timothy I. Carpenter filed.
Aug 11 2017	Brief amici curiae of Data & Society Research Institute and Fifteen scholars of Technology and Society filed.
Aug 11 2017	Brief amici curiae of Competitive Enterprise Institute, et al. filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of Technology Companies in support of neither party filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amicus curiae of Center for Democracy and Technology filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of Electronic Privacy Information Center, et al. filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amicus curiae of The Rutherford Institute filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of The Center for Competitive Politics, et al. filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of Empirical Fourth Amendment Scholars filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of Scholars of the History and Original Meaning of the Fourth Amendment filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, et al. filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amicus curiae of Restore the Fourth, Inc. filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of Institute for Justice, et al. filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of Electronic Frontier Foundation, et al. filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of Scholars of Criminal Procedure and Privacy filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of United States Justice Foundation, et al. filed.
Aug 14 2017	Brief amici curiae of Technology Experts filed.
Sep 25 2017	Brief of respondent United States filed.
Sep 29 2017	Brief amicus curiae of Michael Varco filed.
Oct 02 2017	Motion for leave to proceed further herein in forma pauperis granted by the Court
Oct 02 2017	Motion to appoint counsel filed by petitioner GRANTED and Harold Gurewitz, Esquire, of Detroit, Michigan, is appointed to serve as counsel for the petitioner in this case.
Oct 02 2017	Brief amici curiae of Alabama, et al. filed.
Oct 02 2017	Brief amicus curiae of Professor Orin S. Kerr filed.
Oct 02 2017	Brief amicus curiae of National District Attorneys Association filed.
Oct 06 2017	SET FOR ARGUMENT ON Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Oct 12 2017	CIRCULATED
Oct 18 2017	Record requested from the U.S.C.A. 6th Circuit.
Oct 23 2017	Record received from the U.S.C.A. 6th Circuit is electronic.
Oct 24 2017	Reply of petitioner Timothy I. Carpenter filed. (Distributed)
Nov 29 2017	Argued. For petitioner: Nathan F. Wessler, New York, N. Y. For respondent: Michael R. Dreeben, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.
Jun 22 2018	Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas and Alito, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined. Gorsuch, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
Jul 24 2018	JUDGMENT ISSUED.

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Academic highlight: The states arguing as amici curiae in the Supreme Court – Dan Schweitzer

Relist Watch – John Elwood

Ask the author: “So Long, Earl” – Andrew Hamm
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The Supreme Court will release orders from the May 16 conference on Monday at 9:30 a.m.; John Elwood's Relist Watch compiles the petitions that were relisted for this conference.
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Major Cases
- Department of Commerce v. New York
  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
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Recent Decisions
- Apple Inc. v. Pepper Respondents, who purchased apps for their iPhones though Apple’s App Store, were direct purchasers from Apple under Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois and may sue Apple for allegedly monopolizing the retail market for the sale of iPhone apps.
- Cochise Consultancy Inc. v. United States, ex rel. Hunt The limitations period in 31 U.S.C. §3731(b)(2) -- which provides that a False Claims Act action must be brought within three years after the “the official of the United States charged with responsibility to act in the circumstances” knew or should have known the relevant facts, but not more than 10 years after the violation -- applies in a qui tam suit in which the federal government has declined to intervene; the relator in a nonintervened suit is not “the official of the United States” whose knowledge triggers §3731(b)(2)’s limitations period.
- Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt Nevada v. Hall is overruled; states retain their sovereign immunity from private suits brought in courts of other states.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- al-Alwi v. Trump (1) Whether the government’s statutory authority to detain Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi has unraveled; (2) whether, alternatively, the government’s statutory authority to detain al-Alwi has expired because the conflict in which he was captured has ended; and (3) whether the Authorization for Use of Military Force authorizes, and the Constitution permits, detention of an individual who was not “engaged in an armed conflict against the United States” in Afghanistan prior to his capture.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. Whether a state, consistent with the 14th Amendment, may require an ultrasound as part of informed consent at least 18 hours before an abortion.
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Justice Thomas at Pepperdine Law School

On March 30, Justice Clarence Thomas spoke with former clerk Brittney Lane Kubisch and Pepperdine University President-elect James Gash at Pepperdine University School of Law. Thomas told the audience that he had no plans to retire from the Supreme Court.

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Cases argued	70
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Summary reversals	4
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