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?

[Archangel Michael]

Well, even if a case is before the SCOTUS it may be different enough that the SCOTUS ruling will not affect the case before the lower court.

I would think that putting a GPS on a Government Vehicle wouldn't require a Warrant of any sort, simply because the owner gave permission to tract the vehicle. In this case the judge is probably correct in application of legal principles and won't be affected by the SCOTUS ruling, which probably has to do with private vehicles.

For the others that are complaining about rights being violated, sometimes the world isn't as black and white as you would like. I have no problem with employers of any kind, including governments putting GPS tracking devices on their own vehicles. In fact, I would consider it prudent behavior and anyone not wanting to be tracked in employer's vehicles shouldn't be using them.

Re:Sorry, what was the problem?

[Albanach]

The precedent would be the appelate court ruling that was being appealed to the Supreme Court.

Actually, no. The case being heard by the Supreme Court is being appealed from the D.C. Circuit. Decisions of the D.C. Circuit are not binding on other circuits. However the article says the Judge cited an Eighth Circuit decision United States v. Marquez. As the Eastern District of Missouri is part of the Eighth Circuit, the decision in that case is binding on the lower court.

Effectively, it appears the judge had no choice. If the case citation is accurate, binding precedent in the Eighth Circuit appears to be that no warrant is required for GPS tracking unless and until the Supreme Court decides otherwise.

rule based on current precedents, not future ones

[tverbeek]

So should judges to just sit on their hands and stall until the Supreme Court has told them how to decide the cases in front of them? Or should they do their job and decide those cases promptly, based on their understanding of the existing case law? If the Supreme Court later says that their interpretation is incorrect then it gets overturned, if not then it stays in force. I hate to break it to you, but there are countless legal questions where the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on them, such as one Court of Appeals ruling one way, and another ruling differently. Until a case makes its way to the Supreme Court to settle the question, judges are supposed to continue hear and decide cases; that's their job.

Re:"Currently deciding" = "Haven't decided"

[NeutronCowboy]

I would frankly be surprised if anyone in that chamber has even *glanced* at the U.S. Constitution since they took a required class on it once in law school.

I'm pretty sure they took more than just one class on constitutional law, and have read the entirety of it more often than you suspect. As for it being a rubber stamp - it can't be at once a rubber stamp for both the President and for Congress, since those two are pretty much at loggerheads over everything these days.

Personally, I'm pretty sure that if you'd ask anyone of the justices, they would all say that they're ruling in defense of citizens' Constitutional rights, and that they just happen to disagree with your personal interpretation of it. Or do you think that the Constitution is the only writing in history where everyone who reads it always comes to the same conclusion? I mean, computer software doesn't even behave like that, and it has one less level of human involvement: the interpreter/compiler. A software writer is as human as a constitutional law writer.

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.

Turnabout Is Fair Play?

[PatDev]

Slashdot has so many comments boiling down to "Judges don't understand technology, and they look foolish when they rule on it anyways."

Then we have this article and it's responses, which basically boil down to "A bunch of technologists don't understand the law and the mechanism of precedence, and they look foolish when they comment anyways."