Appeals Court Rules Evidence from Warrantless GPS Tracking is Admissible
9 Oct 2014The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently rendered a somewhat shocking, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), verdict. It was an eight to five decision in the case U.S. v. Katzin.
The surprising decision is that evidence derived from the warrantless use of GPS tracking is, in fact admissible in court, in some situations. The ruling relies on a massively expanded interpretation of the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule spelled out in the Fourth Amendment.
The majority opinion held that officers acted in good faith based on years of precedence when using tracking technology for beepers in previous cases without a warrant.
In building the case against Katzin, police, who suspected Katzin of a string of Rite-Aid pharmacy robberies, attached a GPS tracker to Katzin’s car and used information discovered as a result of the GPS tracking device to arrest Harry Katzin. They did this in absence of probable cause or a warrant.
The evidence was initially excluded by a federal judge in Pennsylvania as a result of its lack of a warrant. It was then appealed to a three-judge panel who were divided on the issue. The matter then went before the full court who reached an eight to five decision holding that because they were acting in good faith at the time, the search was admissible.
The original arrest and trial occurred during the period of time before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that attaching a GPS device to a vehicle for the purpose of tracking the movements of the vehicle constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment in the case of U.S. v. Jones and, as a result, requires both probable cause and a warrant.
Since the violation occurred prior to the Supreme Court ruling, there is no evidence that police acted in anything other than good faith. In other words, the police had no idea they could be participating in activity that violated the civil rights of the defendant.
It should be noted that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the U.S. v. Jones case was unanimous that using a GPS device in order to track a person via his or her vehicle is the equivalent of a search and subject to Fourth Amendment protection.
Serious words of caution, however, were given in the majority opinion of U.S. v. Katzin, which stated, “[W]e caution that, after Jones, law enforcement should carefully consider that a warrant may be required when engaging in such installation and surveillance.”
The dissent was far more simplistic stating that the evidence should be surprised because law enforcement had, in fact, violated the Fourth Amendment rights of the defendant.
There was obvious disappointment by the defendant and ACLU attorney, Nathan Freed Wessler, who represented Mr. Katzin. Wessler said, “The court did a disservice to our system of constitutional rights by letting police make an end run around the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.”
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