[Shadow_Group] Fw: Ruling gives cops leeway with GPS

[Shadow Spook]

  http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=322152&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=<http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=322152&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode=>

Ruling gives cops leeway with GPS
Decision allows use of vehicle tracking device without a warrant

By BRENDAN LYONS, zzzStaff writer
First published: Tuesday, January 11, 2005

In a decision that could dramatically affect criminal investigations 
nationwide, a federal judge has ruled police didn't need a warrant when 
they attached a satellite tracking device to the underbelly of a car being 
driven by a suspected Hells Angels operative.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd clears the way for a 
federal trial scheduled to begin next month in Utica in which seven alleged 
Hells Angels members and associates, including several from the Capital 
Region, face drug-trafficking charges.

The use of satellite tracking devices has stirred controversy and Hurd's 
ruling differs from a decision last spring by a Nassau County Court judge, 
who decided police needed a warrant when they used the technology to follow 
a burglary suspect.

The biker case broke open here last year with a series of raids and arrests 
across upstate New York. The case began in Utica, but was expanded to 
include an organized crime task force that spent more than a year building 
a methamphetamine-trafficking case against a group of alleged outlaw bikers 
from Troy to Arizona.

During surveillance of the group, detectives attached a global positioning 
satellite device to a vehicle driven by Robert P. Moran Jr., an Oneida 
County attorney and Hells Angels associate with a law office in Rome. They 
put the device on Moran's car for two days in July 2003 after he returned 
from a one-day trip to Arizona, where police say he purchased a large 
quantity of methamphetamine.

Over those two days, Moran drove across New York state and allegedly made 
drug deals with suspected Hells Angels members in places such as New York 
City and Troy, according to court records.

Hurd opined that authorities wouldn't need a warrant had they decided to 
follow Moran, so using a GPS device was merely a simpler way to track his 
car "as it traveled on the public highways," he wrote. "Moran had no 
expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of his vehicle on a public 
roadway. Thus, there was no search or seizure and no Fourth Amendment 
implications in the use of the GPS device."

Hurd's ruling follows a line of reasoning that's widely supported by many 
law enforcement agencies. Police contend using tracking devices is no 
different than if they followed a suspect's vehicle in their own cars or by 
using helicopters.

Kevin Mulroy, Moran's attorney, said the issue, which has brought 
conflicting rulings across the nation, is unsettling.

"I think it's something the Supreme Court of the United States is going to 
have to hear," said Mulroy, a Syracuse attorney who was formerly an 
Onondaga County Court judge and assistant prosecutor. "One would think that 
before the police could install devices on your property, to monitor your 
movements, they would need a court order."

A similar controversy arose in Washington two years ago, when that state's 
Supreme Court determined police had the right to attach a satellite 
tracking device to a murder suspect's car, but only after obtaining a warrant.

Detectives attached a GPS device to the man's car for almost three weeks. 
When they downloaded the data, it indicated he had driven to an isolated 
area north of Spokane. Police searched the area and found the body of the 
man's 9-year-old daughter. He later was convicted of her murder, and the 
verdict was upheld.

GPS devices are increasingly becoming a tool for law enforcement. Still, 
their use has been controversial because police agencies are not routinely 
obtaining court orders to install the devices, which rely on orbiting 
satellites and cellular phone networks to pinpoint their target. In many 
states, law enforcement agencies also are using them for less surreptitious 
missions, such as tracking sex offenders and parolees who are enrolled in 
electronic monitoring programs.

It's not clear what effect Hurd's decision will have on their use, but it's 
apparently the first federal ruling regarding GPS devices and the need for 
search warrants.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Grable, who is prosecuting Moran and the 
others, did not return a telephone call for comment.

The use of GPS devices by police most recently made national news in the 
Laci Peterson case. Scott Peterson, the Modesto, Calif., woman's husband, 
was convicted of murdering her on Christmas Eve 2002. In that case, police 
obtained a court order to attach tracking devices to three vehicles driven 
by Peterson, who drove to a waterfront near where the bodies of his wife 
and the baby boy she was carrying were later found.

While the GPS data was admitted in the Peterson case, courts across the 
country are tackling the issue as defense lawyers challenge their 
reliability and whether police have a right to install them without a 
warrant. Similar technology helps police track cellular telephones, which 
also are being used by police to find fugitives and others.






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