Thursday, May 31, 2012

Alabama district court applies good faith to pre-Jones GPS use based on 1981 beeper case from old Fifth Circuit

A district court in the Eleventh Circuit has held that use of a GPS device on a vehicle before the Supreme Court's decision in Jones was done in good faith because a 1981 case (old Fifth Circuit which included present-day Eleventh Circuit, en banc) "held that placing an electronic beeper on the exterior of a defendant's car when the car was parked in a public lot did not violate the Fourth Amendment." United States v. Rosas-llescas, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74594 (N.D. Ala. 2012). Because the device was installed pre-Jones, it was done in good faith.

Several courts have recently decided this issue, but none have applied non-GPS holdings. Courts in the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits have upheld the use of pre-Jones GPS tracking because precedent had allowed it. (Read more here.) Courts outside of those circuits have denied good faith. The Illescas holding could potentially allow good faith to be applied to GPS use in both the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits.

Additionally, the defendant in this case was seeking to suppress evidence obtained after an unconstitutional use of GPS and a tainted traffic stop, but the evidence was not subject to suppression because it was evidence to establish the defendant's identity. The defendant was a suspected illegal alien. Eleventh Circuit precedent does not allow suppression of such evidence even after an unconstitutional search.

Next week, Cybercrime Review will explore recent applications of the Jones decision by lower courts in a three-part series.

0 comments:

Post a Comment