Search and Seizure – GPS devices – exclusionary rule

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U.S. Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Search and Seizure – GPS devices – exclusionary rule

Where officers acted in good-faith reliance on existing precedent when they placed a GPS device on defendant’s car without a warrant, suppression of the evidence is not required.

“The government explained at oral argument that the reference to ‘private property’ accessible to ‘the general public’ meant only that the GPS unit could be attached when the car was in a shopping-mall parking lot or comparable location. This language did not authorize entry into Taylor’s garage or his driveway. Taylor’s counsel did not dispute that characterization. And at the time of these events, Garcia was binding appellate precedent for the proposition that attaching a GPS unit to a car parked on a public street was not a search. See Garcia, 474 F.3d at 996–97; Cuevas-Perez, 640 F.3d at 273–74. The privacy interest in a car parked in a shopping-center parking lot or similar public location is no greater than the privacy interest in a car parked on a public street.”

Affirmed.

14-1981 U.S. v. Taylor

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Magnus-Stinson, J., Per curiam.

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