Orin Kerr
Role at the time: Law professor and Fourth Amendment scholar
Mixed or conditional
Statement summary
Kerr rejects Carpenter's privacy holding but says a warrant rule largely follows if that holding is accepted.
“I think Carpenter’s search holding is wrong. In my view, users don’t have Fourth Amendment rights in their historical cell-site records. But if you accept that erroneous holding as correct, and you then need to figure out what the reasonableness standard is for compelling access, I think something like the majority’s rule, in which the target is still ultimately protected by the same protections that would apply if the information were locally stored, is probably right.”
Open source (opens in a new tab)Does Carpenter Revolutionize the Law of Subpoenas?I think Carpenter’s search holding is wrong.
Why we used this label
Relative to warrantless acquisition of historical location records, Kerr rejects recognizing a Fourth Amendment interest but conditionally supports the majority's protection once that premise is accepted.