Neil and Neil,
page 75
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ABSTRACT
The Government obtained a search warrant permitting it to install a
Global-Positioning Device (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle registered to
respondent Jones’s wife. The warrant authorized installation in the District
of Columbia and within 10 days, but agents installed the device on the 11th
day and in Maryland. The Government then tracked the vehicle’s movements for
28 days. It subsequently secured an indictment of Jones and others on drug
trafficking and conspiracy charges. The District Court suppressed the GPS
data obtained while the vehicle was parked at Jones’s residence, but held the
remaining data admissible because Jones had no reasonable expectation of
privacy when the vehicle was on public streets. Jones was convicted. The D.
C. Circuit reversed, concluding that admission of the evidence obtained by
warrantless use of the GPS device violated the Fourth Amendment.
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The
Government obtained a search warrant permitting it to install a
Global-Positioning-System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle registered to
respondent Jones’s wife. The warrant authorized installation in the District
of Columbia and within 10 days, but agents installed the device on the 11th
day and in Maryland. The Government then tracked the vehicle’s movements for
28 days. It subsequently secured an indictment of Jones and others on drug
trafficking conspiracy charges. The District Court suppressed the GPS data
obtained while the vehicle was parked at Jones’s residence, but held the
remaining data admissible because Jones had no reasonable expectation of
privacy when the vehicle was on public streets. Jones was convicted. The
D. C. Circuit reversed, concluding that admission of the evidence
obtained by warrantless use of the GPS device violated the Fourth
Amendment.
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Neil and Neil,
pages 75-76
|
|
INTRODUCTION
The
Government’s attachment of the GPS device to the vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicles movements
constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment.
The Fourth
Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Here
the government’s physical intrusion on an “effect” for the purpose of
obtaining information constitutes a “search.” This type of encroachment on an
area enumerated in the Amendment would have been considered a search within
the meaning of the Amendment at the time it was adopted.
This conclusion is consistent
with this Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, which until the latter half
of the 20th century was tied to common-law trespass. Later cases, which have
deviated from that exclusively property-based approach, have applied the
syllabus analysis of Justice Harlan’s concurrence in Katz v. United States,
389 U. S. 347, which said that the Fourth Amendment protects a person’s
“reasonable expectation of privacy,” id.,
at 360. Here, the Court need not address the government’s contention that
Jones had no reasonable expectation of privacy,” because Jones’s Fourth
Amendment rights do not rise or fall with the Katz formulation. At bottom, the Court must “assur[e]
preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed when
the Fourth Amendment was adopted.” Kyllo
v. United States, 533
U. S. 27, 34. Katz did not
repudiate the understanding that the Fourth Amendment embodies a particular
concern for government trespass upon the areas it enumerates. The Katz reasonable-expectation-of-privacy
test has been added to, but not substituted for, the common-law trespassory
test. See Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165, 176; Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U. S. 56, 64. United States v. Knotts,
460 U. S. 276, and United States v.
Karo, 468 U. S. 705—post-Katz cases rejecting Fourth
Amendment challenges to” beepers, “electronic tracking devices representing
another form of electronic monitoring—do not foreclose the conclusion that a
search occurred here. New York v.
Class, 475 U. S. 106, and Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, also do not support the
government’s position.
The
Government’s alternative argument and use of the device was a search, it was
a reasonable one—is forfeited because it was not raised below.
|
Held: The Government’s attachment of the GPS
device to the vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s
movements, constitutes a search under the Fourth
Amendment.
Pp. 3–12.
(a) The Fourth
Amendment
protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Here, the
Government’s physical intrusion on an “effect” for the purpose of obtaining
information constitutes a “search.” This type of encroachment on an area
enumerated in the Amendment would have been considered a search within the
meaning of the Amendment at the time it was adopted. Pp. 3–4.
(b) This
conclusion is consistent with this Court’s Fourth
Amendment
jurisprudence, which until the latter half of the 20th century was tied to
common-law trespass. Later cases, which have deviated from that exclusively
property-based approach, have applied the analysis of Justice Harlan’s
concurrence in Katz v. United States, 389
U. S. 347,
which said that the Fourth
Amendment
protects a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy,” id., at 360. Here,
the Court need not address the Government’s contention that Jones had no
“reasonable expectation of privacy,” because Jones’s Fourth
Amendment
rights do not rise or fall with the Katz formulation. At bottom, the Court
must “assur[e] preservation of that degree of privacy against government that
existed when the Fourth
Amendment
was adopted.” Kyllo v. United States, 533
U. S. 27.
Katz did not repudiate the understanding that the Fourth
Amendment
embodies a particular concern for government trespass upon the areas it
enumerates. The Katz reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test has been added
to, but not substituted for, the common-law trespassory test. See Alderman v.
United States, 394
U. S. 165;
Soldal v. Cook County, 506
U. S. 56.
United States v. Knotts, 460
U. S. 276,
and United States v. Karo, 468
U. S. 705—post-Katz
cases rejecting Fourth
Amendment
challenges to “beepers,” electronic tracking devices representing another
form of electronic monitoring—do not foreclose the conclusion that a search
occurred here. New York v. Class, 475
U. S. 106,
and Oliver v. United States, 466
U. S. 170,
also do not support the Government’s position. Pp. 4–12.
(c) The
Government’s alternative argument—that if the attachment and use of the
device was a search, it was a reasonable one—is forfeited because it was not
raised below. P. 12.
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Neil and Neil,
page 76
|
|
PREMISE
In 2004
respondent Antoine Jones, owner and operator of a nightclub in the District
of Columbia, came under suspicion of trafficking in narcotics and was made
the target of an investigation by a joint FBI and Metropolitan Police
Department task force. Officers employed various investigative techniques,
including visual surveillance of the nightclub, installation of a camera
focused on the front door of the club, and a pen register and wiretap
covering Jones’s cellular phone. Based in part on information gathered from
these sources, in 2005 the Government applied to the United States District
Court for the District of Columbia for a warrant authorizing the use of an
electronic tracking device on the Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to Jones’s
wife. A warrant issued authorizing installation of the device in the District
of Columbia and within 10 days.
On the 11th
day, and not in the District of Columbia but in Maryland, agents installed a
GPS tracking device on the undercarriage of the Jeep while it was parked in a
public parking lot. Over the next 28 days, the Government used the device to
track the vehicle’s movements, and once had to replace the device’s battery
when the vehicle was parked in a different public lot in Maryland. By means
of signals from multiple satellites, the device established the vehicle’s
location within 50 to 100 feet, and communicated that location by cellular
phone to a government computer. It relayed more than 2,000 pages of data over
the 4-week period.
The Government
ultimately obtained a multiple-count indictment charging Jones and several
alleged co-conspirators with, as relevant here, conspiracy to distribute and
possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and 50
grams or more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §§841 and 846.
Before trial, Jones filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained through the
GPS device. The District Court granted the motion only in part, suppressing
the data obtained while the vehicle was parked in the garage adjoining
Jones’s residence. 451 F. Supp. 2d 71, 88 (2006). It held the remaining data
admissible because a person traveling in an automobile on public
thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from
one place to another.’ ” Ibid. (quoting
United States v. Knotts, 460 U. S. 276, 281 (1983)).
Jones’s trial in October 2006 produced a hung jury on the conspiracy count.
In March 2007,
a grand jury returned another indictment, charging Jones and others with the
same conspiracy. The Government introduced at trial the same GPS-derived
locational data admitted in the first trial, which connected Jones to the
alleged conspirators’ stash house that contained $850,000 in cash, 97
kilograms of cocaine, and 1 kilogram of cocaine base. The jury returned a
guilty verdict, and the District Court sentenced Jones to life imprisonment.
The United
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the
conviction because of admission of the evidence obtained by warrantless use
of the GPS device which, it said, violated the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Maynard, 615 F. 3d 544 (2010).The
D. C. Circuit denied the Government’s petition for rehearing en banc, with
four judges dissenting. 625 F. 3d 766 (2010). We granted certiorari, 564 U.
S. (2011).
|
In 2004 respondent Antoine Jones, owner and operator
of a nightclub in the District of Columbia, came under suspicion of
trafficking in narcotics and was made the target of an investigation by a
joint FBI and Metropolitan Police Department task force. Officers employed
various investigative techniques, including visual surveillance of the
nightclub, installation of a camera focused on the front door of the club,
and a pen register and wiretap covering Jones’s cellular phone.
Based in part on information gathered from these
sources, in 2005 the Government applied to the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia for a warrant authorizing the use of an
electronic tracking device on the Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to Jones’s wife.
A warrant issued, authorizing installation of the de- vice in the District of
Columbia and within 10 days.On the 11th day, and not in the District of
Columbia but in Maryland, 1 agents
installed a GPS tracking device on the undercarriage of the Jeep while it was
parked in a public parking lot. Over the next 28 days, the Government used
the device to track the vehicle’s movements, and once had to replace the
device’s battery when the vehicle was parked in a different public lot in
Maryland. By means of signals from multiple satellites, the device
established the vehicle’s location within 50 to 100 feet, and communicated
that location by cellular phone to a Government computer. It relayed more
than 2,000 pages of data over the 4-week period.
The Government ultimately obtained a multiple-count
indictment charging Jones and several alleged co-conspirators with, as
relevant here, conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute
five kilograms or more of cocaine and 50 grams or more of cocaine base, in
violation of 21 U. S. C. §§841 and 846. Before trial, Jones filed a
motion to suppress evidence obtained through the GPS device. The District
Court granted the motion only in part, suppressing the data obtained while
the vehicle was parked in the garage adjoining Jones’s residence. 451
F. Supp. 2d 71, 88 (2006). It held the remaining data admissible,
because “ ‘[a] person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares
has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to
another.’ ” Ibid. (quoting United States v. Knotts, 460
U. S. 276,
281 (1983) ). Jones’s trial in October
2006 produced a hung jury on the conspiracy count.
In March 2007, a grand jury returned another
indictment, charging Jones and others with the same conspir- acy. The
Government introduced at trial the same GPS-derived locational data admitted
in the first trial, which connected Jones to the alleged conspirators’ stash
house that contained $850,000 in cash, 97 kilograms of cocaine, and 1
kilogram of cocaine base. The jury returned a guilty verdict, and the
District Court sentenced Jones to life imprisonment.
The
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the
conviction because of admission of the evidence obtained by warrantless use
of the GPS device which, it said, violated the Fourth Amend- ment. United
States v. Maynard, 615 F. 3d 544 (2010). The D. C. Circuit denied
the Government’s petition for rehearing en banc, with four judges dissenting.
625 F. 3d 766 (2010). We granted certiorari, 564 U. S. ___ (2011).
|
Neil and Neil,
page 77
|
Villasenor
(2012)
|
To be
engaged in the world means leaving detailed digital records of almost
everything we do. Mobile phone service providers log the list of cell sites
to which our cell phones connect throughout the day. Mobile apps gather data
on the usage patterns of our wireless devices. They also track device
location to the accuracy of a specific residence or office building. All of
which undermines the oft cited claim that the data gathered is not
“personal”. License plate cameras record our automobile trips. Even when we
walk into a store, restaurant, office building, or sit in a taxi, images of
us are recorded and date stamped.
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Mobile phone service providers
log the list of cell sites to which our cell phones connect throughout the
day. Mobile apps, more than half
a billion of which were downloaded in the U.S.
during the last week of December alone, gather data on the usage patterns of
our wireless devices. In addition, mobile apps often track device location to
the accuracy of a specific residence or office building, undermining the
oft-cited claim that the data gathered is not "personal." Much of
this data is collected and then sold with our consent, in accordance with privacy policies that few of us
read before accepting, to a complex ecosystem of mobile application providers
and advertisers. License plate cameras record our automobile trips. When we
walk into a store, restaurant, office building, or sit in a taxi, images of
us are recorded and date-stamped.
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Neil and Neil,
page 77
|
Villasenor
(2012)
|
The
question before the Court turned in significant part on the “physical
trespass” involved in placing the GPS tracker on the suspect’s car.
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The question before the Court
turned in significant part on the physical trespass involved in placing a GPS
tracker on a suspect's car.
|
This blog is devoted to the remarkable similarities in the writing of Benjamin A. Neil (and his co-authors) and the works of other authors.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Clute Institute 2013 Publication: United States V. Jones
Benjamin
A. Neil and Benjamin A. Neil II (2013) "United States V. Jones 132 S. Ct 945" (2012). Journal of Business Case
Studies, Jan/Feb: http://journals.cluteonline.com/index.php/JBCS/article/view/7547
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