Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled unanimously that police must have a warrant signed by a judge to use GPS technology in tracking suspects, the Associated Press reports.

Police are always trying to get an advantage, which is why in Washington D.C., they decided it was fine to put a global positioning service device on a suspect's car and track him for a month without getting any kind of clearance by a judge. Los Angeles criminal defense lawyers sometimes see tactics like this employed by police and come away shaking their heads.

Even though law enforcement know that crime suspects, including those facing Los Angeles drug charges, must have a fair trial, they are often more concerned with making the arrest. Instead of taking into consideration how their actions could be violating a person's rights.

Sometimes this overzealous approach to investigating crimes can lead to penalties against the department or a civil lawsuit. In other cases, the charges could be dropped or reduced, which could be punishment enough for officers who work long hours on a case only to see it blow up in their faces.

In this case, a man went from being sentenced to life in prison to seeing the charges dropped because of the major court ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court took up the case of Antoine Jones, who was being investigated for a Washington D.C. drug crime.

Officers suspected that he may be involved, so they put a GPS device on his vehicle to monitor where he was driving to and from. After four weeks of leaving the device on his car without his knowledge, they linked him to a known drug house, where drugs and cash were later found.

The man was arrested and later convicted of related drug charges. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. But after the case went through the appeals process, the nation's high court ruled that his charges should be overturned.

The justices agreed that for police to use GPS monitoring, they must treat it like a search, which requires a warrant. An officer who wants to obtain the data must go to a judge and get him to sign off on the warrant.

The information contained in the affidavit for the warrant must be accurate and it can't simply be a wild goose chase. Detectives must have enough information and facts that convince a judge the warrant is necessary to prove the suspects committed the crime.

And now this applies to GPS as well. Officers can't simply attach a GPS device to every vehicle, without any real proof that the driver is involved in a crime and that the information could help police figure out who is responsible.

Justices unanimously agreed in the ruling, though they did so for different reasons. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the warrantless use of GPS constitutes a violation of Foruth Amendment rights. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the expectation of privacy was his reason for agreeing.