Posted on 02/26/2020 1:40:05 PM PST by FewsOrange
Back in 2012, the US Supreme Court declared it was illegal for law enforcement to attach a GPS tracker to a suspect’s car without first getting a warrant. But in 2018, cops in Indiana charged a suspected drug dealer with theft after he removed such a tracking device from his SUV, triggering a legal debate over whether you can legally remove such devices.
As it turns out, you most assuredly can.
A new unanimous ruling from the Indiana Supreme Court has declared that the suspect in question did not “steal” the government-owned device, and that law enforcement should have known better before bringing the charges.
The case started back in July of 2018, when the Warrick County, Indiana Sheriff's Office obtained a warrant to attach a GPS tracking device to an SUV belonging to Derek Heuring, after receiving a tip from a confidential information who claimed he used the vehicle to sell meth.
While the attached device delivered Heuring’s location data to police for around a week, it stopped transmitting shortly thereafter—leading police to suspect it had been removed. Police waited another 10 days to see if the device would start transmitting again, then applied for a new search warrant to search both Heuring and his parents’ homes.
Under US law, law enforcement has to show probable cause that a crime has been committed before performing a property search. In Heuring’s case, police declared that the probable cause was the suspicion that Heuring had committed a crime by removing the device, something the court was skeptical of from the start.
"I'm really struggling with how is that theft," Justice Steven David stated during oral arguments last November.
Once they raided Heuring’s home, police discovered methamphetamine and paraphernalia, and shortly thereafter charged him with drug dealing and theft of the GPS device.
The gambit didn’t turn out particularly well for law enforcement.
In the court ruling, first reported by Ars Technica, judges declared that law enforcement’s justification for the warrant was illegal. The ruling was also quick to note that even if police were able to prove Heuring had removed the device, it didn’t mean he had stolen it, and that suggesting otherwise opened the door to all manner of weedy problems.
"To find a fair probability of unauthorized control here, we would need to conclude the Hoosiers don't have the authority to remove unknown, unmarked objects from their personal vehicles," Chief Justice Loretta Rush said in the ruling.
The court went on to admonish Indiana law enforcement, suggesting that officers should have known better than to lean on such a flimsy excuse for probable cause. Under a principle known as the exclusionary rule, evidence obtained with an invalid search warrant can’t be included at trial, which could easily undermine the Warrick County Sheriff's Office entire case.
"We find it reckless for an officer-affiant to search a suspect's home and his father's barn based on nothing more than a hunch that a crime has been committed," the court wrote. "We are confident that applying the exclusionary rule here will deter similar reckless conduct in the future."
Of course, this is only a ruling in Indiana state court, but it bodes well for other, similar cases around the country.
Theft? Perhaps not.Obstruction? Maybe...although I’m not a lawyer.
“Hey, I thought it was put there by a competitor”
What’s bizarre about these type of guys is that it may be reasonable to happen.
He should have popped it off and attached it to a police car, that way he could say, he just gave them back what was theirs.
Competitor, ex wife’s PI, etc.
Not saying I ate it; however, I am saying that it will not be there. :)
Wanna have lots of fun, remove it from your car, find the head of the local Democrat Party Committee and stick it to HIS car.
Well, they gave it away, so they must not have wanted it any more.....................
“Theft? Perhaps not.Obstruction? Maybe...although I’m not a lawyer.”
The man found something in his car he did not see out there or giver permission to put there. By natural law it is his property to do with what he wishes. The police have acted like pompous, ignorant fools in this instance.
Good ruling. Just imagine law enforcement doing this to you in the future because you are suspected of what once was legal, such as possessing and transporting firearms. Actually, there are places that is illegal, but people haven’t exercised their 2A rights to ensure those rights are not infringed.
At least they would be able to ascertain where the pot dealers and welfare offices are in the town.
I can’t see even that.
Suppose someone stuck something to your car. say some dark box shaped thing on the undercarriage. You have no idea what it is, perhaps thinking maybe it was something in the road that got kicked up by a tire and somehow stuck there.
You could have easily peeled it off and thrown it away.
“I didn’t know what it was...I thought it might be an explosive device”
officers should have known better than to lean on such a flimsy excuse for probable cause
Maybe the judge who signed off on the warrant should have known better also?
It was certainly not theft nor obstruction...think the 5th might apply here...
Though I might have put it on a transfer truck and let ‘em chase that around for a while....
Agree. Good ruling. Shoddy work by the police involved getting the warrant. I didnt read further but I bet the meth perp got off because of it.
How did he spot it? I doubt the cops stuck it on top with a magnet.
This very situation arose in the Pike County Ohio massacre. A family relative, who the police suspected, removed a tracker and was charged with tampering with it. The actual perps were another family... the Wagners, who are currently awaiting trial.
To say otherwise is almost as bad as the Chinese Commies shooting a man and then billing the family for the bullets.
Neither
How is he suppose to know who it belongs to?
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