United States vs Jones

United States v. Jones Issues before the Court Is attaching a GPS tracker to a motor vehicle, and subsequently employing it for tracking its movement on public roads, counted as a search-and-seizure operation under Amendment IV? (United States v. Jones | Case Brief Summary) Facts of the Case Nightclub owner and manager Jones, the defendant in the case, was suspected of trafficking narcotic drugs.

From information collected using a number of investigation methods, law enforcement officials were able to procure a warrant which authorized attaching a GPS tracker to Jones' wife's Jeep (which was never driven by anyone but Jones). However, the law enforcers didn't adhere to the deadline stipulated in the warrant and attached the tracker after the deadline lapsed, employing it for tracking the Jeep's movements (United States v. Jones | Case Brief Summary).

The satellite-guided tracker established the Jeep's whereabouts within 50-100 feet, conveying it to a governmental computer via cell phone and transmitting over two thousand pages of information in four weeks. Eventually, the government was able to obtain a charge against Jones including cocaine supply conspiracy charges. Jones made a pre-trial move to suppress evidential data, which was partially suppressed by the trial court; that is, only information procured when the Jeep remained parked at the Jones's garage at home was suppressed at trial.

The first trial ended in a deadlocked jury, but the subsequent trial lead to a conviction. The District of Columbia Circuit Court (appellate court) reversed the sentence, claiming that Jones's Amendment IV rights were violated by allowing evidence procured from warrantless utilization of a tracker. Court Decision It was acknowledged that installing and utilizing a tracker for following the Jeep's movement was, indeed, a search operation (United States v. Jones | Case Brief Summary).

Rationale of the Court According to Justice Scalia, physical governmental intrusion on the defendant's personal effect was definitely a search under Amendment IV definitions. Traditionally, the Amendment chiefly stressed governmental trespass on citizens' private property to procure information or find incriminating articles. Katz's standard of fair expectations of privacy furthered, rather than repudiated, that understanding (United States v. Jones | Case Brief Summary). Only Katz applies here, and not Karo and Knotts.

The latter cases are different, as the beeper wasn't attached to any piece of property already in the defendant's possession. In Katz, physical law enforcement encroachment on protected territory for garnering information is evident. Alito, Breyer, Kagan and Ginsburg were of the same mind and did not agree to the majority opinion that technical trespass leading to evidence is a search activity. They maintained that Katz standards ought to have been applied to this case.

According to Alito, GPS technology, being relatively inexpensive and easy, surmounts conventional practical limitations on close monitoring. He, thus, ruled that tracker utilization in the given case was a violation of societal expectations that law enforcers wouldn't and couldn't track a person's (or automobile's) every move for four weeks. Although fairly short-term public tracking of people can be considered reasonable, longer term tracking via GPS in police investigations of a majority of potential suspects violates privacy expectations.

Sotomayor was in agreement with Justice Scalia on the argument that Katz didn't substitute, but instead supplemented, the trespass test with regard to whether or not a search had taken place (United States v. Jones | Case Brief Summary). Further, she supported Alito's argument that a majority of instances of long-term tracking through GPS violate Katz, observing that given GPS tracking's unique nature, even short-run tracking can violate citizens' reasonable privacy expectations.

How This Case Will Influence Future Court Decisions Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is especially concerned about novel surveillance technologies' effect, as these can easily enable pervasive, warrantless, mass public surveillance by law enforcers. These techniques breach individual rights to privately operate their cars on public streets and be safe from unreasonable search activities. Time and again, EPIC has called for meaningful action by courts and regulators to safeguard motorists' privacy interests. In the Commonwealth v. Connolly case (454 Mass.

808 (2009)), a "Friend of the Court" case was filed by EPIC, contending that police tracker proliferation gives rise to a large, mostly unregulated, receptacle of comprehensive travel information of Americans (EPIC - United States v. Jones). EPIC has alerted that law enforcers' accessibility of this information gives rise to a threat of mass, ubiquitous surveillance without a predicate act justifying it. In the Herring v. U.S. case (129 S. Ct.

695 (2009)), another "Friend of the Court" case was filed by EPIC for suppressing evidence obtained in motorist searches springing from inaccurate law enforcement records. Further, EPIC filed comments with NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Docket No. NHTSA-2004-18029, 13th August, 2004), supporting robust privacy protections for car EDRs (Event Data Recorders), including an explicit consumer right of controlling driving information gathering and dissemination.

Subsequent cases that diverge from a solely property-based strategy have adopted an analysis of Harlan's Katz concurrence, which claimed Amendment IV safeguarded citizens' reasonable privacy expectations (United States v. Jones:: 565 U.S.). The Court, in this instance, doesn't need to address the governmental claim that Jones didn't have any reasonable privacy expectations as Jones's Amendment IV rights remain unaffected by Katz standards. Fundamentally, it is necessary.