The Colorado Supreme Court will review the use of a Google search warrant used to arrest three teens in connection with the Green Valley Ranch arson that killed a family of five in 2020.

In November, Denver District Court Judge Martin Egelhoff upheld the legality of the warrant, which used a Google reverse-keyword search to identify the three teens as suspects in the arson.

However, in a status hearing Friday, an attorney for Gavin Seymour, one of the teens charged in the arson case who is now 18, said arguments about the legality of the search warrant will happen before the Colorado Supreme Court in May.

Seymour and another defendant, Kevin Bui, are being charged as adults and face premeditated murder charges and dozens of other counts in connection with the fatal fire. The third suspect, 15 years old at the time of the fire, is being prosecuted as a juvenile.

The fire occurred on Aug. 5, 2020, killing five Senegalese family members: 29-year-old Djibril Diol, 25-year-old Hassan Diol, 23-year-old Adja Diol, 2-year-old Khadija Diol and 6-month-old Hawa Baye.

Prosecutors say the fire was intended to be revenge for a robbery a few weeks earlier. Bui allegedly used the Find My iPhone application to track his stolen phone, which led the teens to the home where the Senegalese family lived. He did not find the right house and the teens did not realize until the news of the deaths broke, according to authorities.

During the investigation, police got a warrant for Google searches in Colorado of the home’s address. Egelhoff said they worked with Google to put together a probable cause affidavit for the warrant with which the company would cooperate, and police received an anonymized list of IP addresses associated with searches.

Attorneys argued that the warrants were overly broad and violated protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, but Judge Egelhoff disagreed, ruling the warrants were narrowly tailored to specify the type of evidence police sought.

The Supreme Court will rule on whether the search warrant, which Seymour’s petition called “a digital dragnet of immense proportions,” violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. and Colorado constitutions.

The keyword warrant, known as a “reverse warrant,” is unlike traditional search warrants in that the process works in reverse to search everyone first and identify suspects later, according to the petition.

Apart from Seymour’s case, there are no state or federal decisions addressing keyword warrants, the petition said, making it “an issue of first impression in Colorado, and nationally as well.” Keyword warrants face judicial scrutiny for the first time in Seymour’s case.

The first use of a keyword warrant was in Minnesota in 2017, but, until now, examples were rare and their legality has not been litigated, the petition said.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a brief in the case, saying keyword warrants implicate the privacy rights of everyone who runs a Google search.

Seymour and his attorneys filed a motion to suppress evidence from the keyword warrant. Arguments before the state Supreme Court will happen at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction on May 4.

Seymour and Bui will appear in court on May 26 following the Supreme Court review.

Denver Gazette reporter Julia Cardi contributed to this story.