Judge Doesn't Care About Supreme Court GPS Case

nonprofiteer writes "The Supreme Court is currently deciding whether or not law enforcement needs a warrant before they put a GPS tracker on a person's car. A judge in St. Louis doesn't seem to care about that, though. He ruled last week (PDF) that the FBI didn't need a warrant to track the car of a state employee they suspected was collecting a paycheck without actually going to work. (Their suspicions were confirmed.) While in favor of corrupt government employees being caught, it's a bit disturbing that a federal judge would decide a warrant wasn't needed while the Supreme Court has said the issue is unclear."

Comments

Sorry, what was the problem?

[Osgeld]

unclear does not mean one way or the other, until then its the decision of the local law

Re:Sorry, what was the problem?

[msobkow]

Agreed. Until the Supremes rule, the Federal judge has no prior cases on which to base a ruling. The Federal judge has to make a decision now which may be overturned on appeal based on subsequent Supreme Court rulings, but until the Supremes rule on the issue, all bets are off.

Re:Sorry, what was the problem?

[Martin Blank]

Judges will usually hold a case where a higher court is hearing a case that could affect it to prevent it from having to be reviewed (or possibly appealed and remanded) if the judge's decision is contrary to the higher court's opinion. It's basically an attempt to save the court's time and resources.

Re:Sorry, what was the problem?

[icebraining]

employer's vehicles

Reading TFA, the car actually belongs to the guy, not the employer:

Whether the Constitution allows police to put a tracking device on a car without either a warrant or the owner's permission

Emphasis mine.

Fundamental Misunderstanding of the Law

[sampson7]

The summary of this article is just wrong. The Supreme Court has not said that the issue is unclear - it has merely agreed to hear a case about whether a specific decision made by the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia conflicts with existing Supreme Court precedent.

To the extent that you can infer anything from the Supreme Court's grant of certiorari, it is equally likely to conclude that they took the case in order to slap down the D.C. Circuit's novel approach to the 4th Amendment.

The existing precedent, by the way, is that we have no reasonable expectation of privacy in our cars. As a result, it is not an "unreasonable" search or seizure to attach beepers or other devices to our cars in order to monitor our movements.

In fact, the judge in this case does an excellent job summarizing and applying the relevant case law. He points to a case from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (which is the relevant circuit for St. Louis) clearly stating that putting a tracker on a car and then later retreiving it is not a constitutionally prohibited search or seizure.

Agree or disagree on whether we have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our cars - the judge in this case acted properly. It would have violated another constitutional right - the one to a speedy trial - if he had simply delayed the issuance of his opinion until after the Supreme Court issues its (entirely discretionary) opinion.

What a silly article.

Re:RTFA

[icebike]

The Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause WORDING applies only to state governments, but the REQUIREMENT of equal protection has been read to apply to the federal government as a component of Fifth Amendment due process. The executive branch is held to this standard, and can not tax you more for living in California as opposed to living in Rhode Island. The Judiciary seems to exempt itself from this provision, unwisely IMHO.

You can't claim due process is met everywhere when The Fourth Amendment means different things in different places.