Posted on 09/12/2003 5:45:22 AM PDT by John Jorsett
OLYMPIA, Wash., Sept. 11 (AP) — The police cannot attach a Global Positioning System tracker to a suspect's vehicle without a warrant, the Washington Supreme Court said today in the first such ruling in the nation.
The court refused, however, to overturn the murder conviction of the man who brought the appeal, William B. Jackson, who unknowingly led the police to the shallow grave of his 9-year-old daughter in 1999 after a G.P.S. device was attached to his vehicle.
Spokane County deputies had a warrant for the tracking device used in that case, although prosecutors argued they did not need one.
"Use of G.P.S. tracking devices is a particularly intrusive method of surveillance," Justice Barbara Madsen wrote in the unanimous decision, "making it possible to acquire an enormous amount of personal information about the citizen under circumstances where the individual is unaware that every single vehicle trip taken and the duration of every single stop may be recorded by the government."
Justice Madsen raised the prospect of citizens' being tracked to "the strip club, the opera, the baseball game, the `wrong' side of town, the family planning clinic, the labor rally."
The closely watched case had evoked worries about the police using the satellite tracking devices to watch citizens' every move.
Doug Honig, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said the ruling was the first of its kind in the country.
Attaching a tracking device to a car is "the equivalent of placing an invisible police officer in a person's back seat," Mr. Honig said. "Our state Constitution has very strong protections for privacy. Some other states also have very strong protections for privacy. This will be a strong precedent for them to look at and for any law enforcement agency around the country."
The Spokane County deputy prosecutor, Kevin Korsmo, pronounced himself satisfied that Mr. Jackson's conviction had been upheld. But he said the court had expanded privacy rights for criminal suspects. Mr. Korsmo said that in previous cases involving surveillance by more conventional means, like binoculars or the naked eye, the Supreme Court held that there was no right of privacy for what a person did in public.
In the Jackson case, the defendant sought to have the warrant thrown out, arguing that it was based on the slimmest of premises: If he was guilty, he might return to the scene of the crime.
Prosecutors contended that the warrant was proper and that they did not even need a warrant; they contended that the device was equivalent to tailing Mr. Jackson in an unmarked car.
The court agreed that the warrant was valid, but rejected the comparison between the device and tailing.
"The devices in this case were in place for approximately 2.5 weeks," Justice Madsen wrote. "It is unlikely that the sheriff's department could have successfully maintained uninterrupted 24-hour surveillance throughout this time by following Jackson."
A call to Mr. Jackson's lawyer was not immediately returned.
Mr. Jackson reported his daughter missing the day she died. He was arrested nearly a month later after investigators used the G.P.S. system to map his routes to the burial site. He acknowledged burying his daughter but denied killing her. He said he panicked after finding her body in her bed.
He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 56 years in prison.
"The devices in this case were in place for approximately 2.5 weeks," Justice Madsen wrote. "It is unlikely that the sheriff's department could have successfully maintained uninterrupted 24-hour surveillance throughout this time by following Jackson."
It seems like the suspicions of the police were well founded. No unreasonable force or coercion was applied. It seems strange that the courts won't let the police benefit from the use of technology to do their work. It looks like the ACLU and its hack supporters on the bench are hard at work making the work of criminals safe.
ML/NJ
Heck, we already ignore some pieces of the Constitution... </sarcasm>
I guess now I'm curious as to what investigators CAN do that doesn't constitute illegal search-and-seizure...
"...might return to the scene of the crime." Isn't that what he did?
Actually, I agree, there should be a warrant, the same as for wire taps, and for the same reasons.
However, I have never agreed with the idea that a murderer should escape justice because of a procedural mistake. The two should be separate. If there is evidence of a person's guilt, that evidence should be admitted.
If the evidence was secured illegaly, then the person responsible should face some sort of punishment.
How many innocent people have died at the hands of criminals that have been allowed to walk free, when the evidence against them was "thrown out"?
Nah, I don't think so. I think it's just a more efficient way of tailing someone. Strange that something completely legal is considered unconstitutional when done in a more reliable manner. I'm surprised the court bought the argument, but then I'm not familiar with Washington or its constitution. I wonder what the SCOTUS would rule in federal case vs. the 4th amendment.
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