The Supreme Court Cases
BACKGROUND
This case was based on a subject of privacy (The Fourth Amendment). Antoine Jone was a suspicious individual to the FBIs in Maryland. Antoine was the owner of the nightclub of the District of Columbia and he also had a wife. Antoine and his wife own a jeep, but the vehicle was resign under his wife’s name. The District of Columbia were able to get a search warrant for his vehicle because they suspected that he was part of a drug conspiracy. Within 10 days, they were able to get the search warrant, but on the 11th day, he traveled to Maryland where he was spotted in a public parking lot space. The FBIs then put a GPS under his vehicle without a warrant. The FBIs from Maryland were able to get 2,000 pages worth of data from Jone’s vehicle for 4 weeks straight. When the FBI searched his car, they found $850,000, 97 kg. of cocaine, and some guns. He was arrested the the Court District sentenced him to life imprisonment. He admitted to the judge that he had a partner named Lawrence Maynard and the jury tried to put them on conspiracy charge but they couldn’t get a grip of his conspiracy. Although the officers did have some reasonable suspicious that Jones was the leader of a large cocaine distribution, but Jones stated that the FBI were violating his fourth amendment because they placed the tracker without a warrant so the Court District appealed and asked the Supreme Court to review his case and they agreed to do so.
OUTCOME
The Court concluded that a Fourth Amendment search occurred when private conversations were monitored as a result of an “unauthorized physical penetration into the premises occupied” by the defendant. “In this case, the Government installed a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on respondent Antoine Jones’ Jeep without a valid warrant and without Jones’ consent, then used that device to monitor the Jeep’s movements over the course of four weeks. The Government usurped Jones’ property for the purpose of conducting surveillance on him, thereby invading privacy interests long afforded, and undoubtedly entitled to, Fourth Amendment protection” said Justice Sotomayor. It is clear that the attachment of the GPS device was not itself a search; if the device had not functioned or if the officers had not used it, no information would have been obtained. In favor of Jone’s case, the court voted unanimously 9-0 and Antoine Jone was pleaded not guilty and his Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
United States vs. Des Moines