Philadelphia Criminal Defense Blog

Zak Goldstein 7/15/26 Zak Goldstein 7/15/26

PA Superior Court: Bail Appeals Are Limited to the Record Made at the Bail Hearing

Criminal Defense Lawyer Zak T. Goldstein, Esquire

The Pennsylvania Superior Court has decided Commonwealth v. Younger, 2026 PA Super 125, a new published case affirming an Allegheny County judge’s decision to deny bail in two pending criminal cases. The opinion is important because it shows how difficult it can be to overturn a bail decision when the defense does not present a complete record at the hearing. A bail appeal is not a new hearing. The Superior Court reviews the evidence that was actually presented to the trial judge, and helpful facts that never made it into that record may come too late.

The decision also provides an opportunity to explain the different ways a defendant may seek release while waiting for trial: a motion to modify bail under Rule 529, a motion for nominal bail under Rule 600(B) after the adjusted deadline, and a petition for specialized review if the trial court denies relief. These procedures are not interchangeable. Most importantly, Younger did not decide a Rule 600(B) claim. The defendant mentioned Rule 600, but the court never calculated its deadline or ruled on a written motion for nominal bail.

The Charges and Bail History in Commonwealth v. Younger

The defendant was facing criminal charges in two Allegheny County cases. In the first case, filed in 2024, the Commonwealth charged him with five drug-related offenses. Bail was initially denied, but it was later modified to nonmonetary bail with electronic monitoring. The court subsequently changed the conditions to require in-person reporting. In April 2025, the defendant failed to appear for a status conference, and the court issued a bench warrant.

The second case involved twenty charges, including corrupt organizations, conspiracy, drug delivery, and drug possession charges. The court initially set unsecured bail in that case. The defendant then missed a preliminary hearing. His bail was revoked and forfeited, and another bench warrant was issued.

On March 10, 2026, the trial court lifted the bench warrant in the first case and held a hearing to decide whether to set bail. Pretrial Services recommended no release. Its representative told the court that the defendant had multiple prior arrests, four prior bond forfeitures, three pending cases, and a separate Indiana County hold connected to another missed court date. Pretrial Services also reported that it could not reach the personal reference the defendant had provided.

The prosecutor relied on that history and argued that the defendant had been a fugitive for approximately a year. The defendant disputed the characterization. He argued that he was not a danger or a flight risk, invoked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Talley, and asked the judge to consider conditions less restrictive than incarceration.

What Happened at the Bail Hearing?

A central problem for the defendant was that the record contained little favorable evidence under Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 523. Rule 523 directs a bail court to consider the charges, employment and finances, family relationships, residence in the community, character and mental condition, prior compliance with bail, history of flight, criminal record, and other information relevant to appearance and compliance.

The trial judge repeatedly asked the defendant whether he had anything else to present about bail. The defendant continued to discuss a possible plea and tried to raise Rule 600, but he offered little evidence concerning his job, finances, family, residence, character, or other community ties. He did not present a detailed release plan or verified evidence that could answer the court's concerns about his history of missing court.

The judge relied on the prior failures to appear, bond forfeitures, pending cases, criminal history, and Indiana County hold. The court considered electronic monitoring but rejected it on the ground that monitoring is an alert system and would not reasonably assure the defendant’s appearance. The court also found no meaningful change in circumstances that supported a different result.

The judge therefore denied bail.

The Superior Court Affirms the Denial of Bail

The defendant filed a petition for specialized review under Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 1610. He argued that the judge had denied bail without adequately evaluating the charges, had prevented him from fully presenting his position, and had failed to explain why less restrictive conditions would not work.

The Superior Court rejected those arguments. It held that bail orders are reviewed for an abuse of discretion. That is a deferential standard. An appellate court will generally affirm when the trial court's factual findings have support in the record and its legal conclusions are correct.

More importantly, the Superior Court explained that its review was limited to the evidence presented at the bail hearing and the trial court's findings. It viewed that record in the light most favorable to the party that had prevailed below. The appellate court concluded that the trial judge gave Younger repeated opportunities to address the bail factors and that the record supported the denial.

The court emphasized the seriousness of the pending charges, prior failures to appear, noncompliance with release conditions, bond forfeitures, reported fugitive status, Indiana County hold, and the absence of reliable conditions that would reasonably assure appearance and address safety concerns. It therefore found no abuse of discretion and affirmed the order.

The practical lesson is straightforward: a defendant should not wait for the appeal to assemble the best evidence. A petition for specialized review cannot replace the record that should have been made at the hearing.

How Does Bail Work in Pennsylvania?

Article I, Sections 13 and 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution prohibit excessive bail and generally give an accused person the right to bail before trial. The constitutional exceptions include capital offenses, offenses carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and cases in which no conditions short of imprisonment can reasonably protect a person or the community. Under Commonwealth v. Talley, the Commonwealth must present competent evidence making it substantially more likely than not that one of those exceptions applies; the label attached to a charge is not enough by itself.

Bail does not always require a cash payment. Rule 524 recognizes release on recognizance, nonmonetary bail, unsecured bail, nominal bail, and monetary bail. The court uses the individualized Rule 523 factors to decide which conditions are reasonably necessary to assure appearance and compliance. If the court imposes a monetary condition, the amount may not be greater than reasonably necessary, and Rule 528 requires the court to consider the defendant's financial ability.

What Evidence Can Help Win a Bail Reduction?

A regular request to reduce or modify bail is governed by Rule 529. Before verdict, a Common Pleas judge may modify bail after notice to the parties and a hearing. Once a Common Pleas judge has set or modified bail, a later modification must generally come from a Common Pleas judge after notice and a hearing or from a court of superior jurisdiction.

The passage of time can strengthen a renewed request, particularly when the prosecution is not ready for trial, but time alone may not be enough. A stronger motion answers each concern with specific evidence: verified housing and a responsible custodian; employment, finances, family ties, transportation, and a reliable method for receiving court notices; any necessary medical, mental-health, or substance-use treatment; and documents explaining earlier failures to appear.

The defense should also propose conditions directed at the identified risk, such as electronic monitoring, house arrest, reporting to Pretrial Services, treatment, drug testing, a stay-away order, or surrender of a passport. Documents and witnesses give the trial judge something concrete to rely on and the appellate court something to review.

Prior failures to appear require special attention. Ignoring them allows the Commonwealth's version of events to control the hearing. The defense should explain what happened, distinguish an innocent mistake from an effort to flee, show what has changed, and propose conditions directed at preventing another missed court date.

How Do You Appeal a Bail Decision in Pennsylvania?

Before sentence, when no regular appeal is already pending, a defendant does not challenge a Common Pleas bail order by filing an ordinary notice of appeal. The proper procedure is a petition for specialized review under Rule 1610, usually filed in the Pennsylvania Superior Court.

Under Rule 1602, the petition generally must be filed within 30 days of the bail order unless another rule or court order provides a different deadline. Prompt filing is usually important because the defendant remains in custody. The petition must contain the appellate argument and the necessary record documents; no separate supporting brief is permitted. The trial judge must also state the reasons for the bail decision on the record or identify where those reasons can be found.

The Superior Court confirmed that it must review a properly filed Rule 1610 petition, but mandatory review does not mean a new hearing or an automatic victory. Counsel should make sure favorable evidence is admitted, challenge unsupported assertions, ask the judge to address the proposed conditions, and obtain clear findings for appellate review.

What Is a Rule 600(B) Motion for Nominal Bail?

Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 600 contains two different protections that are often confused.

Rule 600(A) generally requires the Commonwealth to bring a defendant to trial within 365 days of the filing of the criminal complaint. A successful motion under Rule 600(A) and Rule 600(D)(1) may result in dismissal of the charges with prejudice. That calculation asks whether delay was caused by the Commonwealth when it failed to exercise due diligence.

Rule 600(B) addresses pretrial incarceration rather than dismissal. In the ordinary case, a bailable defendant may not remain incarcerated past a run date that ordinarily falls 180 days after the complaint was filed and is extended by periods of delay caused by the defendant. Rule 600 provides separate 120-day periods after an order granting a new trial or an appellate remand.

The difference in the calculation matters. For the 180-day custody limit, Rule 600(C)(2) excludes only periods of delay caused by the defendant. Delay caused by the court or the Commonwealth generally remains in the calculation. The Commonwealth's due diligence, which is important to a Rule 600(A) dismissal motion, is not the test for a Rule 600(B) nominal-bail motion.

The 180-day point is therefore not automatically six calendar months after the complaint was filed. Defense continuances and other defendant-caused delay can move the date. Counsel should review the docket, continuance orders, and custody history and prepare a date-by-date calculation.

Release is not automatic. After the adjusted deadline passes, Rule 600(D)(2) permits the defense to file a written motion requesting immediate release on nominal bail. The motion must be served on the Commonwealth concurrently with filing, and the judge must hold a hearing. A passing reference to Rule 600 during a general bail hearing is not the same as filing the motion with a supported calculation.

Rule 524 defines nominal bail as a token cash deposit, such as $1, with an approved person, organization, or bail agency acting as surety. The court may impose lawful nonmonetary conditions, including house arrest, electronic monitoring, regular reporting, treatment, drug testing, or a stay-away order.

The remedy is release, not dismissal. The criminal case continues, and the defendant must return for all future proceedings. A separate probation, parole, immigration, or out-of-county detainer may also keep the person in custody even if nominal bail is granted in the pending case.

Rule 600(B) does not apply to a defendant who is not legally entitled to bail. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court addressed the dangerousness exception in Talley. The Commonwealth cannot defeat the right to bail through argument and untested allegations alone. It must satisfy the constitutional standard with evidence, and the judge must consider whether available conditions can manage the alleged danger. Younger also shows why a release plan must directly address any history of missed court dates and forfeitures.

Again, Younger did not decide a Rule 600(B) claim. The opinion does not identify a written Rule 600(D)(2) motion, calculate an adjusted run date, analyze continuances, or decide entitlement to nominal bail. A proper motion should address each of those issues and specify the proposed conditions. If the trial court denies the motion, the resulting order may be presented to the Superior Court through a timely petition for specialized review.

The Takeaway

Commonwealth v. Younger reinforces the need to treat the first meaningful bail hearing as the foundation for any appeal. Favorable Rule 523 facts should be supported with documents or testimony, missed court dates should be explained, and proposed conditions should be tied to the risks the judge identifies. While a criminal case remains pending, counsel should continue looking for a stronger basis to renew the request and separately audit the docket as the Rule 600(B) deadline approaches.

A person should not remain in jail simply because an unaffordable bail order was entered early in the case and no one revisited it. Pennsylvania law provides multiple opportunities to seek release, but those remedies work best when counsel acts promptly, develops the facts, and preserves a record that a higher court can review.

Facing Criminal Charges or Appealing a Criminal Case in Pennsylvania? We Can Help.

Goldstein Mehta LLC Criminal Defense — Criminal Defense Lawyer Zak Goldstein

If you are facing criminal charges or under investigation by the police, we can help. We have successfully defended thousands of clients against criminal charges in courts throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We have successfully obtained full acquittals and dismissals in cases involving charges such as Conspiracy, Aggravated Assault, Rape, Violations of the Uniform Firearms Act, and First-Degree Murder. We have also won criminal appeals and PCRAs in state and federal court, including the successful direct appeal of a first-degree murder conviction and the exoneration of a client who spent 33 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Our award-winning Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers offer a free criminal defense strategy session to any potential client. Call 267-225-2545 to speak with an experienced and understanding defense attorney today.

Zak Goldstein 7/14/26 Zak Goldstein 7/14/26

Supreme Court Recognizes a “Miscarriage of Justice” Limit on Appeal Waivers

On June 18, 2026, the United States Supreme Court held that a defendant’s promise not to appeal his sentence cannot be enforced when enforcing it would produce a miscarriage of justice, meaning an error so egregious that it would bring the judicial system into disrepute. Justice Kagan wrote for eight members of the Court in Hunter v. United States, 608 U.S. ___ (2026). Justice Thomas dissented.

The ruling settles a question that had divided the federal courts of appeals for years, and it clarifies when a knowing and voluntary appeal waiver, a standard feature of most federal plea agreements, must give way.

Background

Federal prosecutors charged Munson Hunter III with ten counts of bank and wire fraud arising from a years-long scheme that cost financial institutions about half a million dollars. Hunter signed a written plea agreement. He pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting wire fraud, and in exchange, the government dismissed the other nine counts and agreed not to prosecute him for the conduct they described.

The agreement included an appeal waiver. Hunter gave up the right to appeal both his conviction and his sentence, reserving only the right to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. It also stated that any modification of its terms had to be in writing and signed by all parties. The district court accepted the plea as knowing and voluntary.

At sentencing, the Probation Office recommended that Hunter, as a condition of supervised release, “take all mental-health medications that are prescribed by [his] treating physician.” Hunter objected, telling the court he did not want to be “forced to medicate.” The court imposed the condition anyway and sentenced Hunter to 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. As the hearing closed, the judge told Hunter, “You have a right to appeal.” When the court asked whether counsel had anything to add, the defense answered, “Nothing from the defense,” and the prosecutor said, “Your Honor, I believe—well, no. I—no.”

Hunter appealed the medication condition, arguing that it infringed a due process liberty interest in refusing unwanted mental-health medication. The government moved to dismiss based on the appeal waiver. The Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal. Under its precedent, an appeal waiver gives way in only two situations: when ineffective assistance of counsel tainted the waiver, and when the sentence exceeds the statutory maximum. Neither applied.

The Court’s Decision

The Supreme Court first rejected Hunter’s argument that the sentencing hearing itself had undone his waiver. The judge’s misstatement about a right to appeal did not modify the plea agreement, which required any change to be in writing and signed by both sides, and nothing at the hearing reflected the mutual agreement a modification requires. The government’s silence did not surrender its right to enforce the waiver either. The proper time to assert that right, the Court explained, comes after a defendant files a notice of appeal, not at sentencing. The Court noted that it had reached a parallel result in Class v. United States, 583 U.S. 174 (2018).

The Court then reached the central question: whether the government’s right to enforce an appeal waiver has limits. It held that it does. Courts are not bystanders to these waivers. A district court must accept a plea agreement before an appeal waiver takes effect, and a court of appeals decides whether the waiver will be enforced at all. Because enforcement can lock an unlawful sentence into place, the Court reasoned, the standard for enforcing waivers implicates the integrity of the judiciary, not only the interests of the parties. Relying on Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153 (1988), and United States v. Mezzanatto, 513 U.S. 196 (1995), the Court concluded that enforcing every waiver automatically would risk institutional harm.

The Court adopted the standard that most federal circuits already apply: an appeal waiver is unenforceable when enforcing it would result in a miscarriage of justice. It emphasized that this sets a high bar. The error must be obvious, not one a judge could reasonably make, and of a kind that would undermine public confidence in the courts. Ordinary mistakes in applying sentencing law do not qualify.

The Court offered three illustrations of errors that could clear that bar. A sentence exceeding the statutory maximum qualifies. So does a sentence infected with a blatant constitutional error, such as reliance on an impermissible factor like race or an unconstitutional condition of supervised release. And so does a sentence imposed without some minimum of civilized procedure. The Court described these as examples rather than an exhaustive list.

The Court did not decide whether the medication condition in Hunter’s case met the standard. Describing itself as “a court of review, not of first view,” it vacated the Fifth Circuit’s judgment and sent the case back for that court to apply the new standard.

The Concurrences and the Dissent

Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, concurred. He traced the rise of plea bargaining and appeal waivers and raised, for a future case, whether a defendant can knowingly waive the right to appeal a sentence he cannot yet foresee. Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Justices Alito and Barrett, wrote separately to stress that the exception reaches only extreme cases, and to register his disagreement with what he read as a broader approach in Justice Gorsuch’s opinion. Justice Barrett added that the decision rests on established waiver principles rather than any supervisory power over the lower courts.

Justice Thomas dissented. He argued that the Court identified no source of law for its new exception. The right to appeal a sentence is a statutory right of relatively modern origin, he wrote, and a defendant who waives it in a valid plea agreement should be held to that bargain.

The Takeaway

Hunter confirms that a signed appeal waiver is not absolute, though the Court designed the exception to be narrow. For defendants in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the Third Circuit, the decision largely ratifies existing practice, because the Third Circuit has applied a miscarriage-of-justice limit since United States v. Khattak, 273 F.3d 557 (3d Cir. 2001). The remaining questions return to the courts of appeals, which will decide, case by case, which sentencing errors are serious enough to overcome a waiver.

Facing Criminal Charges or Appealing a Case in Pennsylvania? We Can Help.

If you or a loved one are facing criminal charges, serving a state or federal sentence, or considering a direct appeal, post-conviction petition, or federal habeas petition, we can help. We have successfully defended thousands of clients against criminal charges in courts throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and we have won criminal appeals and PCRAs in state and federal court, including the successful direct appeal of a first-degree murder conviction and the exoneration of a client who spent 33 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Our award-winning Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers offer a free criminal defense strategy session to any potential client. Call 267-225-2545 to speak with an experienced and understanding defense attorney today.

Zak Goldstein 7/9/26 Zak Goldstein 7/9/26

PA Supreme Court: The Attorney General Can Now Intervene When the Philadelphia DA Concedes PCRA Relief

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has decided Commonwealth v. Brown, No. 32 EM 2023 (Pa. June 16, 2026), reversing a Philadelphia judge's decision to vacate a second-degree murder conviction for which the District Attorney's Office had agreed to concede relief. Exercising its rarely used King’s Bench authority, the Court held that a Philadelphia prosecutor’s agreement does not substitute for a judge's independent review, and it announced a new rule for Philadelphia. From now on, whenever the DA’s Office concedes that a defendant is entitled to relief under the Post Conviction Relief Act, the PCRA court must give the Office of Attorney General notice and a chance to intervene before it rules. Justice Dougherty wrote for the Court.

The decision strikes at one of the most important programs of the current District Attorney’s administration. Since 2018, the DA’s Office has conceded relief in more than 120 old cases, most of them murders, and it has agreed to undo roughly three quarters of the death sentences that were on the books when the District Attorney took office. Brown holds that those agreements cannot carry a case on their own, and it writes an adversary into the process by letting the state Attorney General step in as a full party. For a defendant who was counting on an agreed concession to move a case forward, the path just became longer and less certain, and the AG’s Office tends to reflexively oppose the grant of relief in nearly every case.

The Facts of the Case

The case grew out of a 2003 robbery and murder at a Rite Aid at 12th Street and Girard Avenue in Philadelphia. A store employee tipped off a group about the cash kept in the store’s safes. After a failed robbery attempt, the group returned the next day, and one of the men shot and killed the manager, Michael Richardson, during the robbery. A jury convicted Lavar Brown of second-degree murder for his role in the robbery conspiracy, and the court sentenced him to life in prison. Brown was later convicted of a separate, unrelated first-degree murder and sentenced to death, and his Rite Aid conviction served as an aggravating circumstance supporting that death sentence.

The claim at the center of this appeal surfaced years later. In a 2021 petition, Brown argued that the Commonwealth had violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), by failing to tell the defense that a cooperating witness, Ronald Vann, had falsely accused a young woman named Kennisha Paige of taking part in the robbery. Paige could not have been involved because she was in a residential facility for girls, hundreds of miles away, on the day of the murder. Brown pointed to four documents from the investigation that, in his view, showed Vann had named Paige and that detectives had later confirmed her alibi. His theory was that a witness willing to accuse an innocent person was a witness the jury might not have believed when he pointed the finger at Brown.

What Happened in the PCRA Court

The DA’s Office agreed. In 2021, it conceded that Brown was entitled to a new trial. The families of Brown’s murder victims asked to intervene, but the PCRA court allowed them to participate only as friends of the court, without access to the prosecution’s files.

The trial judge was openly skeptical. Again and again, he told the parties that the documents did not actually show Vann had accused Paige. As he put it at one hearing, “on the face of the documents that were submitted to me, I can’t tell that that, in fact, happened.” He said more than once that he wanted an evidentiary hearing and that he wanted to hear from the detectives and prosecutors who had worked the case. Then, after the defense and the District Attorney’s Office both told him a hearing was unnecessary, the judge reversed course. On May 5, 2023, he granted a new trial with the Commonwealth’s consent, without holding a hearing and without deciding whether the claim was even timely. The victims’s families petitioned the Supreme Court, which took the unusual step of granting King’s Bench review.

The Supreme Court's Decision

The Court reversed on every front. It first held that the claim may have been untimely. Brown’s conviction became final in 2007, and he raised the Brady claim more than thirteen years later. The PCRA’s one-year deadline is jurisdictional, and a court must decide timeliness claim by claim before reaching the merits, no matter what the parties have agreed. The PCRA court never addressed the deadline at all. As the Court reminded, “[t]he agreement of the parties . . . does not suffice to vest a court with jurisdiction.” Commonwealth v. Rivera, 324 A.3d 452 (Pa. 2024).

On the merits, the Court held that Brown never proved the one fact his entire claim depended on, that Vann accused Paige in the first place. A prosecutor cannot suppress evidence that does not exist. The documents were inconclusive, and one of them cut the other way, because it discussed the Rite Aid murder without mentioning Paige at all. None of Vann’s many recorded statements named her, and two detectives declared that they would have documented any such accusation. Because a genuine dispute of fact remained, the Court held that the PCRA court had to hold an evidentiary hearing before it could grant relief, whether or not the parties wanted one.

The Court's Findings About the DA’s Office

Much of the opinion focused on how the District Attorney’s Office handled the case. The Court found that the Office fell short of its duty of candor to the court. It withheld a 2003 memorandum showing that Vann had named both Brown and his co-conspirator months earlier than the Office told the judge, a fact that undercut the very theory the Office was advancing. It joined a stipulation the Court found false, and it repeated the same misstatements in its filings. It never interviewed a single witness before conceding, and it opposed both an evidentiary hearing and the families’ efforts to see the file. Quoting the Third Circuit’s decision in an earlier concession case, the Court noted that “[c]andor is especially critical when proceedings are non-adversarial.” Wharton v. Superintendent Graterford SCI, 95 F.4th 140 (3d Cir. 2024).

The Court then walked through a series of other cases, including Wharton, Murchison, and Perrin, in which state and federal courts had rejected the Office's concessions or faulted its conduct. It concluded that the problem was not that the Office concedes relief, which a prosecutor must do when the law and facts require it, but that too many of its concessions have gone untested and have proven unreliable.

The New Rule for Philadelphia

To address that perceived pattern, the Court used its constitutional rulemaking power to require that, in any Philadelphia PCRA case where the DA’s Office concedes relief, the PCRA court give the Attorney General notice and an opportunity to intervene before ruling. The Attorney General does not replace the District Attorney and may well agree that relief is warranted (although this particular AG’s Office almost certainly will not). The point, the Court explained, is to restore an adversary to a one-sided proceeding so the judge can reach a reliable result. The Court grounded the Attorney General’s right to intervene in the Commonwealth Attorneys Act and limited the rule to Philadelphia because, in its words, that is where the problem is.

The Court divided. Justice Dougherty's opinion drew the votes of Justices Mundy, Brobson, and McCaffery, with Brobson and McCaffery also writing separately. Justice Donohue, joined by Chief Justice Todd, agreed that the grant of a new trial had to be reversed but would not have imposed the new intervention requirement. Justice Wecht dissented and would have declined to hear the case at all.

The Takeaway

Brown is a significant decision, and for defendants in Philadelphia it is a difficult one. For years, a concession from the District Attorney’s Office was often the surest route to relief in an old case. After Brown, that concession no longer clears the path. The Attorney General, which usually defends convictions reflexively and is far less sympathetic, can now enter the case as a full party and oppose relief, which means more litigation, more delay, and in many cases a contested hearing where there would have been none.

The decision also reaffirms principles that matter in every post-conviction case, not just the ones the District Attorney concedes. The PCRA’s time limits are jurisdictional, and a petitioner must plead and prove a timeliness exception for each claim, even a claim the Commonwealth agrees has merit. A prosecutor’s agreement is never a substitute for judicial review, and a judge faced with a real dispute of fact must hold a hearing. For defense counsel, the lesson is to build a complete record rather than lean on the Commonwealth's agreement. That means proving timeliness, gathering the underlying evidence, and preparing to litigate the claim on its merits even when no one is on the other side.

Finally, the Court split three ways, and two justices, including the Chief Justice, would not have created the new procedure. The Court described its rule as subject to future refinement through the normal rulemaking process, so this is likely not the last word on how Philadelphia’s concession cases will be handled. It is also unclear how long this rule will remain in effect, whether it is retroactive to cases on appeal, and whether it would survive even if Philadelphia one day elects a different District Attorney.

Facing Criminal Charges or Appealing a Case in Pennsylvania? We Can Help.

Zak Goldstein 7/6/26 Zak Goldstein 7/6/26

U.S. Supreme Court: Obtaining a Person’s Google Location History Is a Fourth Amendment Search

The United States Supreme Court has decided Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112, 609 U.S. ___ (2026), holding that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain a person’s cell-phone location data from Google. The decision extends the Court’s landmark ruling in Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), to the geofence warrants that law enforcement has increasingly used to identify suspects by sweeping up the location data of every phone near a crime scene. Writing for the Court, Justice Kagan held that the police conducted a search “because an individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location data,” and that they intrude on that interest even when they take it “for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company.”

The decision is a significant win for digital privacy and for the defense, but it does not end the case. The Court decided only that a search occurred. It left for the lower court whether this particular warrant was valid, and it did not disturb the separate ruling that has allowed the evidence into Mr. Chatrie’s prosecution so far.

The Facts of Chatrie

On May 20, 2019, a man robbed a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia. He handed the teller a note demanding $100,000, threatened to hurt her and her family, and claimed he had lookouts outside. When she said she could not access that much money, he brandished a firearm, ordered everyone to the floor, and forced the manager to put $195,000 into a bag before leaving on foot. Witnesses and surveillance footage showed that the robber had approached from a corner of an adjacent church while appearing to talk on a cell phone, but the investigation stalled and he remained at large.

Weeks later, the police applied to a Virginia magistrate for a geofence warrant directed to Google. A geofence warrant does not name a suspect. It draws a virtual perimeter around a location and compels a company to turn over data about the cell phones that were inside it around the time of a crime. The goal, as the Court put it, “is to find out who was there and so who might have done it.” The warrant here used a 150-meter circle around the credit union and followed a three-step process Google had developed with law enforcement: first, Google would produce anonymized location data for every phone in the geofence during the hour surrounding the robbery; second, the police would narrow the list and Google would provide more data, now reaching outside the geofence over a two-hour window; and third, Google would hand over names and other identifying information for a final, narrowed set of users.

The data came from a Google service called Location History, which more than 500 million users worldwide had turned on. Location History logs a phone’s location roughly every two minutes, drawing on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cell sites, GPS, and IP address information to fix the phone’s position within about twenty meters. It can even estimate elevation, which can reveal what floor of a building a phone is on. The district court described it as “the most sweeping, granular, and comprehensive tool” available for collecting and storing location data.

Running the warrant’s process, Google produced anonymized data for 19 phones at step one, the officers narrowed the list to 9 at step two, and the final list at step three contained 3 users. One was Okello Chatrie. His Location History showed that he entered the geofenced area about ten minutes before the robbery and headed toward a residential area immediately after leaving the bank. A federal grand jury charged him with robbery and related firearms offenses, and he moved to suppress the location evidence.

The lower courts splintered. The district court found that the warrant “plainly violates the rights enshrined in [the Fourth] Amendment” but admitted the evidence anyway under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. A divided panel of the Fourth Circuit affirmed on the different ground that no search had occurred at all, reasoning that Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in “two hours’ worth of Location History data voluntarily exposed to Google.” Sitting en banc, the Fourth Circuit split evenly, 7 to 7, on whether a search had taken place and affirmed in a one-sentence order. The Supreme Court agreed to decide that single question: whether obtaining the location data was a search.

What the Supreme Court Decided

The Court held that it was. The analysis tracked Carpenter, which held that obtaining historical cell-site location information from a wireless carrier is a search because people have “a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements.” Everything that drove Carpenter, the Court explained, “applies as well or better” to Location History. The data is more precise, fixing a phone within about twenty meters rather than within a sector of one-eighth to four square miles. It is more frequent, averaging 720 location points a day against roughly 101 for the cell-site data in Carpenter. And it is more personal: users treat Location History as a record of their own movements, much like the “emails, documents, photographs, or calendars” that a person “reasonably views as his own” even when a company stores them.

The Court rejected the government’s argument that two hours of data is too brief to matter. Quoting Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), it noted that “even short-term monitoring” can reveal “a wealth of detail about [his] familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.” The Fourth Amendment, it added, has never been understood to apply only once an intrusion “goes too far”; it applies regardless of “the quality or quantity of information” obtained. The concern is that the government can reach “all of a cell-phone user’s movements,” giving it “a virtual panopticon with which to scrutinize its citizens’ activities,” and the ability to pick out a short window from that database after the fact is “more a practical benefit to the government than a limit on its intrusive powers.”

The Court also refused to apply the third-party doctrine, which ordinarily strips Fourth Amendment protection from information a person hands over to a business. As in Carpenter, location data is “qualitatively different” from the bank records and dialed phone numbers in the Court’s older cases, and it is “not truly shared” in any ordinary sense. The government argued that Location History is different because users must switch it on, but the Court was unpersuaded. Google “repeatedly prompts users” to enable the service, sometimes warning that a device will not “work correctly” otherwise, while saying nothing about how often it records location, how precise that location is, or that the data may end up with the government. Treating each app and feature as a separate, voluntary surrender of privacy, the Court said, “misapprehends the very nature of modern cell-phone use,” where almost everything requires some affirmative opt-in.

The holding is direct: “It does not matter if the time period scrutinized was only two hours. Nor does it matter that the materials obtained were handed over by a third-party tech company.” Accessing Location History is a search.

Where the Court stopped is just as important. A search is not automatically unconstitutional; the Fourth Amendment bars only unreasonable ones, and a search conducted under a valid warrant is generally reasonable. The Court called this an “uncommon, multi-step” warrant and declined to decide whether it satisfied the requirements of probable cause and particularity at each step. Describing itself as “a court of review, not of first view,” it sent that question back to the Fourth Circuit. It also left untouched the good-faith ruling that allowed the evidence in to begin with.

The Court divided 6 to 3. Justice Kagan wrote for five members. Justice Gorsuch agreed that a search occurred but would have reached that result by treating the Location History as Chatrie’s property rather than through the “reasonable expectation of privacy” test. Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, wrote separately to say she would have gone further and held the warrant invalid at steps two and three, where it gave officers what an earlier case called a “roving commission” to gather more data without returning to a magistrate. Justice Alito, joined in part by Justices Thomas and Barrett, dissented, arguing among other things that the third-party doctrine should control and that the opinion was effectively advisory because it would not change the outcome of Chatrie’s case. Justice Barrett also dissented separately.

The Takeaway

Chatrie matters on two levels. Doctrinally, it confirms that Carpenter was not confined to its facts. The government had hoped to read Carpenter narrowly, as a rule about long-term tracking of a single suspect that left short, location-specific requests like geofences untouched. The Court rejected that reading and made clear that the warrant requirement turns on the nature of the surveillance, not the number of hours of data the police choose to take. Justice Alito’s dissent warns that the majority’s reasoning will not stay limited to location data, and points to Amazon purchase histories, Google search histories, and payment apps as the next disputes. Whatever one makes of that concern, it cuts in the defense’s favor: the logic of Chatrie gives defendants a serious argument that other revealing digital records held by third parties are protected as well.

On the practical level, the decision matters for any case built on digital location evidence. The government can no longer defend a geofence or similar location search by claiming that no search occurred and no warrant was needed. That forces the fight onto the warrant itself, which is where the defense has the better arguments. As Justice Jackson’s concurrence and the district court’s own findings show, these multi-step warrants often let officers decide for themselves which users to pursue, with little guidance from the magistrate, and the data reached movements to and from homes, a school, and a hospital. Those are the particularity and probable-cause defects that suppression motions should target on remand and in future cases.

Two cautions are worth stating plainly. First, Chatrie himself has not won. The Court decided only that a search occurred and remanded everything else, including the good-faith question that has kept the evidence in his case from the start. A favorable ruling on the constitutional question does not guarantee suppression when a court is willing to excuse the violation as reasonable reliance on a warrant. Second, this particular technique is already fading. Google has represented that, as of July 2025, it stores Location History on users’ own devices and can no longer respond to geofence warrants for that data. The lasting significance of Chatrie lies less in the specific procedure it addressed than in the principle it confirms: new tools do not shrink old protections, and the government generally needs a warrant before it can turn a person’s phone into a record of everywhere they have been.

Finally, the real takeaway from Chatrie is that the Court has drastically limited the third-party doctrine for electronic data. In this case, it applied to the location data stored by Google. But ultimately, the Court seems inclined to recognize a reasonable expectation of privacy in other types of electronic data where even though the generation of that data is arguably optional, the reality is that people have no choice if they want to exist in the modern world. The Court has now applied it to cell phone location data and Google location data, and it could expand into other areas. The Pennsylvania Constitution has already recognized this and has a much more limited version of the doctrine.