Washington (CNN) -- Police erred by not obtaining an extended search warrant before attaching a tracking device to a drug suspect's car, the Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling Monday.
A majority of justices said that secretly placing the device and monitoring the man's movements for several weeks constituted a government "search," and therefore, the man's constitutional rights were violated.
Four other justices also concluded that the search was improper but said it was because the monthlong monitoring violated the suspect's expectation of privacy.
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That difference of legal analysis may create further confusion among law enforcement over when and for how long such high-tech operations can be used, on both criminal suspects and the general public.
At issue was whether movement in a private vehicle on city streets is "public" in nature.
Growing sophistication of electronic devices to monitor the movements of suspects made this issue ripe for review, since lower courts had disagreed on when such surveillance is permissible without a warrant.
The devices send an electronic signal to a satellite, allowing real-time plotting of someone's whereabouts.
Antoine Jones was a co-owner of Levels, a Washington nightclub, when he was suspected of trafficking cocaine on the side. A joint FBI-D.C. police team covertly attached a GPS device to his Jeep outside the terms of a warrant.
A warrant had been granted, but installation of the GPS device was authorized by a judge only within 10 days and only in the District of Columbia. Agents waited until the 11th day to secretly place it on the vehicle, and they did so in neighboring Maryland. Jones was then monitored for 28 days as he drove around the area.
He was eventually tracked to a house where law enforcement officers discovered nearly 100 kilograms of the illegal narcotic, along with about $850,000 in cash. Jones was sentenced to life in prison.
The court was being asked to decide whether such covert surveillance violated the Fourth Amendment and whether in this case it should be considered a "search," a "seizure" or both.
The justices agreed police violated Jones' rights but disagreed on just why.
The Constitution's Fourth Amendment says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
Antonin Scalia wrote for a five-vote majority that a person's property is legally sacred, and the government had to justify placing a GPS device on the vehicle. Scalia said the electronic age does not change a centuries-old concept.
"The government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information," said the ruling. "We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted."
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the conclusions.
But a group of four justices led by Samuel Alito concluded that the majority's reasoning was "artificial" and did not address larger legal concerns of searches in the digital age, including GPS. He said the court should have used this case to clarify the limits of police monitoring of wireless personal communication devices like mobile phones and Internet use.
"The availability and use of these and other devices will continue to shape the average person's expectations about the privacy of his or her daily movements," Alito wrote. "In circumstances involving dramatic technological change, the best solution to privacy concerns may be legislative."
But the U.S. Congress and most states have not kept up with the times, Alito said, leaving courts to sort out what level of privacy a citizen can expect.
He said that in this case, four weeks of tracking was more than enough to justify police getting a search warrant.
Alito was backed by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
The justices have another pending case they may decide to tackle, from an Oregon inmate who faced similar circumstances. Police there had attached a GPS device to Juan Pineda-Moreno's car while it was parked on his property. Officers then tracked him to a remote marijuana field he was cultivating. He was convicted and sentenced to more than four years behind bars.
Unlike in the Jones case, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that this was not a "search," so no warrant was required to place the device on Pineda-Moreno's Jeep Cherokee. His conviction was upheld.
The justices have not taken any action on the Oregon appeal, perhaps waiting to resolve the issue with Jones' appeal from Washington.
The current case is U.S. v. Jones (10-1259).
A majority of justices said that secretly placing the device and monitoring the man's movements for several weeks constituted a government "search," and therefore, the man's constitutional rights were violated.
Four other justices also concluded that the search was improper but said it was because the monthlong monitoring violated the suspect's expectation of privacy.
U.S. Supreme Court rules on health care challenge On humane treatment of downed livestock
That difference of legal analysis may create further confusion among law enforcement over when and for how long such high-tech operations can be used, on both criminal suspects and the general public.
At issue was whether movement in a private vehicle on city streets is "public" in nature.
Growing sophistication of electronic devices to monitor the movements of suspects made this issue ripe for review, since lower courts had disagreed on when such surveillance is permissible without a warrant.
The devices send an electronic signal to a satellite, allowing real-time plotting of someone's whereabouts.
Antoine Jones was a co-owner of Levels, a Washington nightclub, when he was suspected of trafficking cocaine on the side. A joint FBI-D.C. police team covertly attached a GPS device to his Jeep outside the terms of a warrant.
A warrant had been granted, but installation of the GPS device was authorized by a judge only within 10 days and only in the District of Columbia. Agents waited until the 11th day to secretly place it on the vehicle, and they did so in neighboring Maryland. Jones was then monitored for 28 days as he drove around the area.
He was eventually tracked to a house where law enforcement officers discovered nearly 100 kilograms of the illegal narcotic, along with about $850,000 in cash. Jones was sentenced to life in prison.
The court was being asked to decide whether such covert surveillance violated the Fourth Amendment and whether in this case it should be considered a "search," a "seizure" or both.
The justices agreed police violated Jones' rights but disagreed on just why.
The Constitution's Fourth Amendment says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
Antonin Scalia wrote for a five-vote majority that a person's property is legally sacred, and the government had to justify placing a GPS device on the vehicle. Scalia said the electronic age does not change a centuries-old concept.
"The government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information," said the ruling. "We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a 'search' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted."
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the conclusions.
But a group of four justices led by Samuel Alito concluded that the majority's reasoning was "artificial" and did not address larger legal concerns of searches in the digital age, including GPS. He said the court should have used this case to clarify the limits of police monitoring of wireless personal communication devices like mobile phones and Internet use.
"The availability and use of these and other devices will continue to shape the average person's expectations about the privacy of his or her daily movements," Alito wrote. "In circumstances involving dramatic technological change, the best solution to privacy concerns may be legislative."
But the U.S. Congress and most states have not kept up with the times, Alito said, leaving courts to sort out what level of privacy a citizen can expect.
He said that in this case, four weeks of tracking was more than enough to justify police getting a search warrant.
Alito was backed by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
The justices have another pending case they may decide to tackle, from an Oregon inmate who faced similar circumstances. Police there had attached a GPS device to Juan Pineda-Moreno's car while it was parked on his property. Officers then tracked him to a remote marijuana field he was cultivating. He was convicted and sentenced to more than four years behind bars.
Unlike in the Jones case, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that this was not a "search," so no warrant was required to place the device on Pineda-Moreno's Jeep Cherokee. His conviction was upheld.
The justices have not taken any action on the Oregon appeal, perhaps waiting to resolve the issue with Jones' appeal from Washington.
The current case is U.S. v. Jones (10-1259).
20 comments:
We live in a time where most of us air our daily lives through social networking sites. We live in a time where you can easily Google someone and discover numerous things about them within a few clicks. And yes, we live in a time where GPS systems can locate individuals anytime, anywhere. If a police officer happened to discover information about a suspected criminal online, would that still be constituted as a search? This case clearly presents an ethical dilemma. The police were granted a warrant, so the judge obviously felt they had a right to further investigate the dealer. From a constitutional standpoint, and with the conclusion that placing the GPS on the dealer's car was a search, the police were clearly in the wrong. They were in the wrong because they went outside of the warrant's terms. But the constitution was written in a time where GPS tracking wasn't available, and it is highly unlikely that the Founding Fathers were thinking ahead and including GPS tracking as a possible search method. So did the police really need a warrant? Perhaps I am being too literal, but taking into consideration what search means in the constitution, I don't think placing the GPS system on the car can be classified as one. Private investigators and police officers have followed around suspected criminals for years. The GPS system simply allowed the officers to do the exact same thing without having to physically be there. Until there is a definition of search that takes into account modern technological advances, we cannot rely simply on the opinion of the justices when someday, those justices will no longer be serving. It needs to be clearly defined so that these situations aren't up for debate. As of now, if placing a GPS system on a suspect's car allows the cops to catch them, I think they should be allowed to. In the future, if GPS systems are deemed an unconstitutional violation of privacy on paper, then they should need a warrant before doing it.
I think it is important that even with the changes accompanying the advancement and progress of the United States that the government makes sure to not step over the boundaries defined by the Constitution. The technological advancements the US has encountered such as the GPS must be treated with the same rules as any other issues even though according to this report it has helped to incarcerate many criminals who would otherwise probably never had been convicted.
Whatever happened to good ol' fashioned tailing? It's so much more exhilarating and dramatic to be secretly followed by the police, but alas real-life crime-solving does not place importance on exhilaration or drama. Real-life crime-solving places importance on solving crime. Sometimes though, what is necessary (practical) to solve crime infringes on people's (even criminals') rights, which isn't right. GPS tracking systems were once thought of as tools of the future. But that was the past. Now they are either invaluable sources of information or major threats to individual privacy, or both. I for one think that it would be really cool if the GPS tracking devices made funny noises when the car was moving and the driver got freaked out and started imagining that he or she was being followed by a monster (of any sort), but this would only get us a good laugh and maybe a lawsuit if we're lucky. Next time, I'll volunteer to tail people if the police can't spare anyone actually unimportant enough to have some fun.
There is definately a violation of privacy in this case. Even though Jones was involved with illegal drugs, the police have no right to bug his car without a search warrant because it is violating his rights as a U.S. citizen stated in the Constitution in the Fourth Amendment. It makes you think, what all do the police and F.B.I have access to? What do they hear? They should not have the access to interfere with our personal lives, then it will not be personal anymore.
i think the government did kind of barge in on his privacy, but at the same point in time, they did catch a criminal and put him away. so yes, maybe they did "violate" his privacy but it was for the best. sweet and simple!
I think that it is not wrong to put GPS trackers on people's vehicles if they are suspected of crimes, and if the police have a warrant to do so. The problem with these cases is that the law does not clearly state how using a GPS tracker should be treated by law. I agree that the judicial system is behind on technology. Without proper definitions of what is legal or not, people convicted with the help of GPS trackers could go free for police searching without a warrant, it the judicial system rules that one is required later on. I do not disagree with the practice of using GPS's, but I think better legal measures need to be put in place to address their uses, restrictions, and if a warrant is needed to use them.
The Fourth Amendment states that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." It is clear that this amendment was created to protect the people's privacy but it is less specific on how to categorize search from seizure or public from private. These lines are obviously blurry as seen by differing opinions of the Justices. As for the individual case of Antoine Jones, a search warrant had been granted. Because the terms of the warrant were abused the government should be punished to dignify the Fourth Amendment but since the evasion resulted in a major drug bust Jones should still be punished with out relinquish.
This is another example of our legal system's failure to catch up with the times (which are admittedly progressing quickly). It seems logical to me that the police should have gotten a search warrant to place a GPS on a suspect's car. This sort of tracking should only be used on people who are very likely to be involved in criminal activity. On the other hand, I think this is an ingenious way of tracking suspects so that they show where they are hiding the goods.
After reading the articles account of how and when the device was placed, it is apparent that this was a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The police planted the GPS device after the expiration of a warrant and monitored the device while the suspect was located outside of their jurisdiction. As to whether or not the attachment of the GPS to suspect's (or victim's) vehicle is actually a "search" or not, while the instance does not fit any of the examples in the Constitution (that was written in the Colonial Era), time and technology must be taken into account to realize that this instance would in fact fit what the founding fathers were thinking of when they adopted this amendment into the Bill of Rights.
Since the warrant was out-of-date and the GPS was placed on his car in Maryland instead of Washington, I don't think the evidence should be valid. If evidence that was collected outside of a warrant is used in a case, then there is no point to the warrant, which would mean that your house/property could be searched at any time without reason. This would of course violate the Fourth Amendment, so the evidence should not be used.
It's a shame that they did not operate within the confines of the warrant and gain valid evidence to use against Jones, but I think that upholding the Fourth Amendment is more important, and that not doing so would inevitably open a Pandora's box of decreased personal privacy.
On a side note, the article mentioned that there was some debate about the private/public nature of driving around, which I found interesting. I think that driving is a public act insofar as people can see you in your car, but private in that, usually, you're just another anonymous driver to the hundreds of other people on the road. So I support that GPS units should not be placed on cars without a warrant, because it violates a private act and entails the collection of information about a person that would not be collected otherwise. And plus, if a warrant is not needed to place a tracking device on a car, I would worry that eventually GPS units would be placed on all cars routinely.
Wow this really is a crazy story it makes me wonder what else the government is doing behind our backs. They just got lucky that their suspicions panned out well because if Jones had not had that stuff they could have been in even more trouble than they are already in. They violated this mans right due to suspicion that isn't right but I think that because he violated laws he should pay the price of what he has done the, police weren't the the only ones to violate something . So both Jones and the police should pay for the consequences of their actions.
I think that having the GPS put on a car is no different than someone physically following them around.
I believe that this is not an invasion of privacy. People should know that with the increase in technology anyone can track someones where abouts and what they are doing. I believe that the FBI has all the right to use technology to further investigate people and what they are doing.
My only question is why exactly is this such a huge deal? It is the same as if they had monitored cell pings from the suspect's personal phone which may or may not have gps already loaded onto it, but most phones today do so, so it's a likelihood that that's the case. Also it's the same with actual gps's (such as the TomTom) that millions of car owners use for day to day commute. Cell phone providers and gps companies all keep records and information via cell pings and gps signals for all of their users which can be accessed by law enforcement, the government and if need be, individuals (such as parents keeping track of the whereabouts of their children with the gps loaded onto their phones). So again I ask why is it such a huge deal that the police in Washington placed a tracking device onto the suspect's car, when the suspect's cell phone provider or gps company may have access to the same information of his location?
This is just one of many cases where established criminals have escaped the law because of some fine distinction of what is considered constitutional. We see this over and over again because the law cannot fairly cover all situations so generalizations must be made. It is sad that our justice system is the best in the world when cases like this make us see how it is far from being perfect. It’s a catch-22 because the very laws that protect us also make it harder for law enforcement to catch criminals. In this specific case, a big issue concerns whether or not the Constitution evolves with society. With new technology like GPS, should the Constitution change to include privacy laws about technology? I believe these issues need to be addressed since we are entering a new age of technology, but the traditional concepts of the Constitution should still apply to everyone.
The police violated Jones rights. The fourth Amendment clearly said "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be volated." A warrant had been granted, but the installation of the GPS had to be done within 10 days and in the District of Columbia. The police didnt do that. They did it on the 11th day and in neighboring Maryland. The police did wrong by not obtaining an extended search warrant. Jones constitutional rights were violated. Jones deserves the sentence of life in prison he got. But the police made a mistake too, and they should be punished for violating Jones rights.
Whether this drug dealer is guilty or not, it's not okay for police to blatantly violate the fourth ammendment. I know that they're just trying to put criminals behind bars, but violating the principles that our constitution was founded upon undermines the credibility of our entire legal system. It's not just about the outcome; it's about the principle. Ends don't justify means. I really detest when police officers let their power get to their heads, but it still suprises that there are a few officers who consider themselves to be above the constitution.
I realize people are worried about their rights to privacy, but I think the GPS tracking is justified. If you're not doing anything suspicious then you won't get tracked. Besides, they're public roads, not private ones. You're driving in plain sight. If the government really wants to track you, they'll do it anyway.
I believe that the police did not have the right to place a GPS on someones car unwillingly. The car is private property under Jones' name and shouldn't be messed with unless issued a search warrant. Although he should be punished for the cocaine, the GPS should be consiserded illegal.
I feel like that the police did violate the man's privacy. I do believe it was someway unconstitutional but not specifically the 4th amendment. The 4th amendment specifically addresses "unreasonable searches and seizures." I feel like there could have been an easier more "constitutional" way to busting this druglord instead of simply lazily placing a GPS on his car. The 4th amendment was not precisely violated, but the acts of the police were borderline unconstitutional.
Antoine Jones was under watch because of of illegal narcotic and had over $850,000. . He suspected with narcotic.
A warrant had been granted, but installing the GPS device was being authorized by a judge only within 10 days. Jones was then monitored for 28 days as he drove around the area.
Jones was sentenced to life in prison.
The government agreed by putting the Gps underneath his jeep, which of course was violating the fourth amendment and also invading privacy of Antoine jones. theres other ways for the government to make sure they aren't doing anything they suspect. instead of putting gps under a persons car.
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