Rocky Mountain Tracking » Law

Supreme Court Ruling Could Make or Break First-Degree Murder Trial

Marisa O'Connor — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:00:59 +0000

In wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling, calling warrantless GPS tracking unconstitutional, attorneys around the country are digging through their cases and filing appeals. Eric Vernon, Shon Pernice’s defense lawyer, is no exception. Pernice, an independent firefighter in Kansas City, MO, is charged with first-degree murder of his spouse, whose body has yet to be found. He is scheduled to stand trial later this month, and his attorney hopes that the recent Supreme Court ruling will work favorably in Pernice’s case.

Renee Pernice, the suspect’s spouse, was reported missing in January of 2009. Investigators and Renee’s family believe her husband is responsible for her disappearance. Because the body has yet to be located, there is little hard evidence against the defendant. Now it appears some of the most incriminating evidence is being called into question. The suspect was traced to a park within days of his wife’s disappearance, and was seen releasing the family dog. However, investigators may have only been able to witness this suspicious activity with the help of a GPS tracking device installed on Pernice’s vehicle. According to Vernon, police tracked his client’s cell phone and vehicle without obtaining a warrant.

Vernon filed motions to suppress the evidence gained through illegal GPS tracking. A Clay County judge will make a decision as to the fate of the evidence on Friday. According to Paul Morrison, a former Johnson County District Attorney who now practices as a defense lawyer, the Supreme Court didn’t do investigators any favors. “It’s going to make police work a little harder,” said Morrison. “Prosecutors and police are going to have to get warrants when they want to do this kind of thing.” As more and more cases like this pop up, time will show the lasting impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Bill Passed to Speed U.S. Air Traffic Control’s Move to GPS

Marisa O'Connor — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:00:29 +0000

GPS technology has been innovating the aviation industry for years, but not as quickly as Congress might want. Although GPS technology is owned and maintained by the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been slow to replace older technologies. Currently, U.S. air traffic control is monitored by radar, but this new bill would require definitive action to swap the radar for more accurate GPS devices. The bill passed the Senate 75-20, despite some opposition, and is now headed to the White House for final presidential approval.

Switching from radar to GPS technology holds a lot of potential for the aviation industry and travelers, alike. Radar sends location information to ground control every six to 12 seconds. GPS, on the other hand, provides second-by-second location information about air traffic. With such precise information, more air traffic can be safely monitored, meaning that planes will be able to land and take off more frequently and closer together. The GPS also show pilots the exact location of, not only their plane, but other aircrafts and obstacles in the area. This means safer, better organized flights for everyone.

Under the new bill, the FAA is granted $63.4 billion over four years. $11 billion of those funds are allocated to the modernization of the air traffic system. Along with these funds, the FAA was also given a deadline of June 2015 to develop new arrival procedures to account for the accuracy provided by GPS technology for the country’s top 35 busiest airports. Updating the entire country’s airports is no small task, but this bill takes an important step in speeding up the process. Hopefully, the FAA can step up to the plate and accommodate the needs of the ever-growing population of air travelers.

CA Arson Suspect Tracked Without Warrant

Marisa O'Connor — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:00:08 +0000

After many mixed rulings across the country regarding whether or not police need a warrant to track suspects with GPS, the Supreme Court announced the final verdict: evidence obtained from a GPS device without a warrant will not hold up in court. This was great news for Antoine Jones, of the infamous case heard by the high court, but has some California residents concerned. Attorneys across the land are searching through their case histories for opportunities to appeal guilty verdicts, and Jairo Perkins-Grubbs’ lawyers are no exception.

Perkins-Grubbs is being charged with 20 felony counts of arson for allegedly setting a series of fires in Butte County, CA. The fires began towards the end of July and continued until October 3, 2011, causing massive amounts of property damage in the area. His attorneys are hoping to use the historic Supreme Court ruling to challenge some of the evidence obtained against their client. According to the defense, investigators monitored the suspect with a GPS device without a warrant.

The best case scenario for Perkins-Grubbs is if the bulk of evidence against him was obtained from the illegal GPS device. Prosecutors in the case say they are unsure what the Supreme Court ruling will mean for this case. Any evidence gathered illegally cannot be used against the suspect in court. However, if enough evidence is available outside the tracking device, the case may still hold up.

It is a scary thought that such a dangerous criminal could be released over a legal technicality. Unfortunately, cases like this reveal that the U.S. court system is far from perfect. Some criminals will walk free, but we can hope that at the very least, these close calls with the law can serve as a deterrent from future crimes.

Controversy in Chicago Over Possible Taxicab GPS Mandate

John Chapman — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:00:01 +0000

It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? The Chicago City Council held a vote in January to modify the regulations on its taxi cabs. The vote, designed to increase customer satisfaction and vehicle efficiency, may usher in sweeping changes to the taxi industry.

The first major point curbs cab driver overwork: the ordinances would mandate that drivers work no more than 12 hours a day. This regulation would appear to benefit not only the Chicago cab industry, but traffic safety in the city as well. Chicago deals with some of the most difficult traffic obstacles in the United States, and if the cab drivers are not well rested, then disaster is in the air.

The second major point may cost taxi companies a bundle: the ordinance would mandate that new cabs have a maximum of 75,000 miles. The current standard is 150,000 miles. This ordinance is designed to keep a better fleet on Chicago’s streets, raising the standard of practice and allowing passengers to have a more secure ferrying experience.

The third point involves GPS tracking: every cab in the city of Chicago would be fitted with GPS tracking devices. They provide the most efficient route through Chi-town traffic and allow the customer a transparent view of the route being taken by the driver (this would curb “wandering cab driver syndrome,” in which a driver takes an indirect route to a destination in order to increase fare).

There are numerous advantages that arise with the installation of GPS tracking in taxis. Since every taxi could be overseen from home base, inefficient behavior may be curved. Additionally, if a criminal act takes place in a taxi, police may subpoena the records for potential use in court.

The City Service Taxi Association of Chicago is not happy with the changes. Its president suggested that the City Council’s mandates might prove too expensive for many Windy City taxi services. However, these sweeping changes may provide benefits that these taxi services are unaware of.

Supreme Court Throws Monkey Wrench Into Justice Department GPS Tracking

John Chapman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:00:16 +0000

The Supreme Court has spoken, and the Justice Department is not happy–much less the legal community as a whole. The current buzz is that the Court backed off on the opportunity to clearly delineate how GPS tracking technology will change the face of law enforcement.

The case began as law enforcement officials tracked a Washington D.C. drug kingpin. As the suspect moved back and forth to various stash houses, law enforcement tracked the suspect’s vehicle with a clandestinely placed GPS tracking device. A warrant for GPS tracking had been obtained, but it had expired before the device was installed.

That the case made it all the way to the US Supreme Court was a windfall, no doubt, for the kingpin. The US legal system as a whole–as well as the GPS industry–waited in suspense, expecting a Supreme Court ruling that could redefine the use and nature of GPS tracking in the legal profession.

The ruling disappointed many–even some that sit on the high court. The Supreme Court’s decision unanimously ruled that the evidence obtained through GPS tracking was null and void, as it was obtained without a warrant. However, the court also unanimously declined to take it any further than that, eliciting questions as to whether the nation’s highest court went far enough to address GPS use in law enforcement.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinion may become one of the most legendarily disappointed opinions in modern day Supreme Court rulings. The Justice expressed dismay that, even though most Americans routinely post private information publicly, the government may not act as if the information is public. The decision should have sent shock waves through the legal system. Instead, it was a whimper, with many complaining that the court marginalized the case into a simple situation of surveillance without a valid warrant.

The United States’ legal approach to GPS tracking is still not fully formed. The nation simply does not know how to handle the legal implications of increasing dependence on technology. Facebook, GPS tracking, texting, and Twitter are all too quickly reshaping what it means to have freedom of speech in the US.

Serial Rapist Verdict Will Probably Stand in Wake of Supreme Court GPS Ruling

John Chapman — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:00:31 +0000

Shock waves are still rippling through the US legal system after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant before tracking suspects with a GPS tracking device. Accused criminals, lawyers, and police are scrambling to see how the ruling may retroactively impact cases that are over a decade old.

One such case involves a serial rapist that attacked women in Tennessee from 1994 to 2008. Robert Jason Burdick was finally tried, convicted and jailed after police carefully built a case against the criminal. Days before his arrest, police secretly installed a GPS tracker on the man’s vehicle.

Throughout the trial, Burdick’s lawyer argued that the accused man’s Constitutional rights were violated by the installation of the GPS. Carrie Gasaway, the attorney that defended Burdick, claimed that evidence obtained by the device was not valid. Her case never made it to the Supreme Court. Burdick remains in jail today.

So, does the recent United States Supreme Court ruling invalidate Burdick’s conviction? Should Burdick be released from jail? Analysts say that Burdick’s release will likely not happen anytime soon.

The evidence used to convict Burdick wasn’t obtained with the GPS tracker. Indeed, law enforcement use of GPS was not common in Tennessee during that time, and police were far from dependent on it in building their case against Burdick. What got Burdick convicted was DNA. The serial rapist’s DNA was taken from crime scenes and matched to DNA taken from silverware the man used at a restaurant. The GPS tracker came into the case late in the game. In fact, the GPS only functioned as apart of an already comprehensive twenty-four hour surveillance process used by police.

The case of the “Wooded Rapist” will likely not be overturned due to the United States Supreme Court ruling regarding GPS tracking warrants. Evidence obtained through GPS tracking was marginal–Burdick would have been proven guilty without it. Because of this, a solid conviction stands, and Burdick remains guilty under the law and incarcerated in the state of Tennessee. Burdick was arrested and convicted thanks to solid, careful, methodical police work. There is no replacement for such fine police work–and Tennessee remains a safer place to live because of that.

Supreme Court Decides Warrants Needed for GPS Tracking

Marisa O'Connor — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:00:42 +0000

In a historical case, the highest courts in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled that law enforcement are required to obtain a warrant before monitoring a suspect with a GPS tracking device. Since the technology was developed, countless innovations have been developed for GPS tracking. One of the most controversial uses of the technology has been police surveillance. Courts across the United States have been split on the constitutionality of warrantless GPS tracking. The issue was recently heard before the Supreme Court, in the historical United States v. Jones case.

The court’s decision is a “landmark ruling in applying the Fourth Amendment’s protections to advances in surveillance technology,” said Andrew Pincus, a Washington lawyer, in a brief filed on Jones’ behalf. The case in question involved Antoine Jones, a D.C. nightclub owner who received a life sentence after police found a large stash of drugs in his vehicle. The sentence was overturned by the D.C. Court of Appeals, due to the fact that much of the evidence obtained was provided by information gathered from the GPS device illegally attached to Jones’ vehicle.

This high-profile case was the latest in a string of similar cases receiving mixed rulings across the country, and caught the Obama Administration’s attention. The Administration asked that the high courts reinforce the original conviction. The primary argument for Jones’ sentencing is that GPS tracking is no different than other means of surveillance, which do not require a search warrant.

The Supreme Court Judges unanimously disagreed, setting an important precedent for tracking technology and privacy rights. “We hold that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia. Ironically, the officers on Jones’ case did obtain a warrant before attaching the tracking device to his vehicle. They only had ten days to attach the device, and waiting until that period had expired before using it, violating the warrant.

Big Brother and GPS Tracking

Hillary Mayfield — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:00:23 +0000

Orwell’s book 1984 raised alarms about big government always watching, but his fictional work is creeping ever closer to reality. As more cases involving GPS tracking come to light, citizens are beginning to realize what is at stake. Even the highest court in the land seems uncertain as to how to decide on the necessity of a warrant before tracking a suspect.

In the Name of Justice
The case before the Supreme Court concerns whether police should be required to obtain a warrant before tracking an individual. It might be tempting to say no since the police are serving the greater good of the community, but where does investigating end and prying start? Most people think in terms of navigational help when it comes to GPS, but GPS units used by the police are more of a two-way communication device. These GPS tracking devices interact with cellular data networks to keep a constant vigil on a suspect’s vehicle. It seems to fall more in the category of wiretapping, which does require a warrant, than a simple stake-out.

For You or Against You
Government is not the only one watching. Electronic devices of just about every kind have the ability to track a person’s location, browsing history, and apps. Makers of these devices not only keep record of this information, they sell it to other companies in an attempt to build their business. Companies like SmartPhone, Google, Facebook, and Verizon Wireless all sell information they gather from their customers to outside companies looking for a new pool of clients to draw from. Even the innocent collecting of traffic data by a GPS navigation company for the purpose of helping its users can be used by police to setup speed traps. Medical records and financial information can be released, children can be tracked, and employment can be terminated based on false information.

In a country where right to privacy is everything, why do Americans allow such scrutiny of their movements, purchases, and searches? Is it the free apps, ready access to information, easy to use navigational tools? How big are we willing to let Big Brother get? GPS tracking technology is very useful, but the buyer must beware and realize what he is sacrificing in the name of technology.

Motorola Pulls E911 Patent from Suit

Khristen Foss — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:00:32 +0000

In December 2011, Motorola filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC) against Apple over six patents. One of the patents in question was removed from the complaint a few weeks prior to this hearing, and on January 5^th, Motorola removed yet another, US Patent No. 7,751,826. The patent would help users more easily make the important decision of whether they should leave the location feature that relies on the GPS device built into their smartphones on, or turn it off.

A significant portion of the population chooses to turn this feature off, not wanting to broadcast their location for a host of privacy-related reasons. For some of them, it is an easy decision. There are those, however, that are torn between the two. If the user turns off the location feature which uses your GPS coordinates to pinpoint your exact location, the E911 system wouldn’t be able to do the same in the case of an emergency. This information is crucial to first responders, especially if you are incoherent and unable to tell them where you are, or if you are lost and really don’t know the name of the intersection or highway you are traveling on.

This patent describes many different ways phones could temporarily allow GPS tracking, sending their location to first responders without having to go through a host of menus in attempts to reactivate the feature manually. Let’s face it, in most emergency situations, you normally don’t have the time to go through that process. One of the ways covered in the patent: the number sequence “9-1-1” triggers the GPS device to automatically turn itself on. Another method covered is a special button. When pressed, it activates the GPS device to begin tracking your location.

Dropping this patent from the lawsuit seems to make sense. Would the ITC even allow Motorola to exclusively offer the option to turn off location tracking without compromising the ability for emergency responders to find you when calling 911? Probably not. Florian Mueller of Foss Patents agrees. “If Motorola won an ITC import ban over devices implementing that feature, it’s quite possible that the ITC would deny or delay such a ban for public interest considerations.”

While the E911 patent was removed from this complaint filed with the ITC, it interestingly remains in another lawsuit filed in Wisconsin by Motorola, also against Apple. Motorola is claiming the iPhone infringes upon Motorola-held patents, while Apple has its own lawsuit in motion, scheduled to go to trial November 25, 2012, against Motorola. Apple feels this is a FRAND issue (Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory terms) and as such, they should be granted access to these patents. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you updated here at the RMT blog as new details emerge and hearings are scheduled.

New GPS Tracking Law in Vermont is Unpopular

Mark Rummel — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:00:31 +0000

Because of recent laws, the state of Vermont can no longer handle search warrants the way that they were previously handled. Up until recently, courts in Vermont were able to track down information about any search warrant on any individual quickly and easily. This ability overrode a basic human right in the United States, and it was recently deemed unconstitutional by Robert Bent, a Superior Court judge in Essex, Orleans, and Caledonia counties in the state of Vermont.

Search warrants are usually stored until each piece of evidence that was found using the warrant has been filed with the court. Under this new law, inventory must be filed more quickly, meaning that information will be disposed of faster than ever. Court officials started the process for this law when a meth case was filed, and while the search warrant originally did not exist, it was later released by the court. Because this paperwork and many others have been filed incorrectly, each judge that files a search warrant is now responsible for seeing that the warrant has been filed correctly.

The hope of this new law is that police will be able to use the evidence to obtain GPS tracking information that will allow them to track personal vehicles and communication devices. This has been deemed unconstitutional by many because it is called an unreasonable search and seizure, violating the 4th amendment, but with this tracking information, and the use of the GPS tracking coordinates, officials in the affected counties of the state of Vermont believe that crimes can be solved more quickly, while still eliminating corruption among the court workers in Vermont. Because of this law, many people are angry with the government in Vermont, but law enforcement stresses that the GPS tracking should help minimize crime, and solve violent crimes more quickly.