Colorado Supreme Court to hear arguments about Google keyword search that led Denver PD to arson suspects

DENVER — The Colorado Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday about the Google keyword search the Denver Police Department used to track down the suspects involved in a house fire that killed a Senegalese family of five in Denver's Green Valley Ranch neighborhood in 2020.

About half a year after the deadly fire, in late January 2021, authorities arrested three teens in connection with the crime: Kevin Bui and Gavin Seymour, both 16 years old at the time of their arrest, and Dillon Siebert, who was 15 at the time of his arrest. The trio incorrectly thought Bui's stolen iPhone was in the home, according to an arrest affidavit.

“The way this search worked is that Google was asked to provide to law enforcement every single person — maybe in Colorado, but it looks like probably in the world — who searched for, either in the Google app itself or in Google maps, for a particular address," explained Ian Farrell, associate professor at the University of Denver's Sturm College of Law.

“It’s a fascinating case,” said Farrell. “The argument from the defendants is that because the information was obtained in violation of their 4th Amendment rights, the judge made an error in allowing that to be presented. It’s a classic example of the challenges that are faced when you have a document that was written in the 1780s and [1790s] and you’re trying to apply it to digital technology.

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