Beep. Beep. Don’t Put That Thing On My Car

You are making the rounds stopping by to see your friends and enjoying a nice weekend. Little do you know that the police have put a GPS tracking device on the undercarriage of your car to track your movements. You don’t know it but you are under investigation.

When your car shows up at a notorious drug dealer’s house the police are dispatched and you get pulled over.

It doesn’t matter that there are drugs found in the car because the case will be dismissed. Why can’t the police use drugs they find in your car against you in court?  The answer is simple. Your Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure has been violated.

The police must obtain a search warrant before they can attach an electronic GPS device (beeper) to your car.

The United States Supreme Court has held that the Fourth Amendment protects persons from unreasonable search and seizure of their houses and personal effects without a search warrant.  A car is a personal effect as that term is defined by the Fourth Amendment, according to the United States Supreme Court. When the police attached a GPS device to your car they encroached upon a constitutionally protected area without a search warrant and violated your Fourth Amendment rights.

Because your constitutional rights were violated any criminal charge must be dismissed.  The case is US v Jones, 565 US ___; 132 S Ct 951 (2011).