Motion to Suppress – Sentencing – GPS Search

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Criminal

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Officials: EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Motion to Suppress – Sentencing – GPS Search

No. 14-3187 United States of America v. Richard Martin

Police warrantless use of GPS tracking device on appellant vehicle to track suspected drug trafficking permitted per WI precedent.

“Martin attempts to support his position that there must be affirmative evidence of “good faith” or actual reliance by directing us to the cases where we have applied Davis’s holding. According to Martin, there was evidence in these cases that the police had acted without recklessness or gross negligence. He notes that in Brown, police believed their installation of a GPS tracking device on a vehicle with the owner’s consent was the same as asking an informant to wear a concealed recording device, 744 F.3d at 476, and that in United States v. Gutierrez, 760 F.3d 750 (7th Cir. 2014), a prosecutor instructed the police to conduct the warrantless search at issue, id. at 752. As for United States v. Taylor, 776 F.3d 513 (7th Cir. 2014), he highlights that a deputy prosecutor sought authority from the court to attach a GPS device before the warrantless search occurred. Id. at 514. From these cases, he concludes that we have only refused to apply the exclusionary rule where police “did not act recklessly, deliberately, or with gross negligence because they acted in good faith reliance on the belief that the law permitted their con‐ duct.” (Appellant’s Br. at 18 (emphasis original).)  “

Affirmed

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