REVISED August 20, 2015 . I would not assume that all information voluntarily disclosed to some member of the public for a limited purpose is, for that reason alone, disentitled to Fourth Amendment protection. 478, 71 L.Ed. The appeals court in Katzin held that a warrant was indeed required to deploy GPS tracking devices, and further, that none of the narrow exceptions to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement (e.g. [32] In response to criticisms within Alito's concurrence, Scalia emphasized that the Fourth Amendment must provide, at a minimum, the level of protection as it did when it was adopted. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. The information from the GPS tracker constituted a warrantless search, the Court found. 1999). Syllabus. Supreme Court of United States. Argued February 22, 1999-Decided June 21, 1999. https://www.thoughtco.com/united-states-v-jones-supreme-court-case-4783275 (accessed March 22, 2021). . The majority held that by physically installing the GPS device on the defendant's car, the police had committed a trespass against Jones' "personal effects" – this trespass, in an attempt to obtain information, constituted a search per se. 787. He became the target of an investigation run by a joint task force that involved the metropolitan police and the FBI. Circuit then denied prosecutors' petition for rehearing en banc, over the dissent of Chief Judge David B. Sentelle, joined by Judges Karen L. Henderson, Janice Rogers Brown, and Brett Kavanaugh. In the instant case, the Court concluded, since the Government's installation of a GPS device onto the defendant's car (his "personal effects") was a trespass that was purposed to obtain information, then it was a search under the Fourth Amendment. Jones and Maynard were then convict… Petitioner was sentenced to death for the crime of kidnaping resulting in the victim's death. . The Supreme Court justices voted unanimously that this was a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, although they were split 5-4 as to the fundamental reasons behind that conclusion. It led to the undeclared Quasi-War (1798 to 1800). The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed that conviction, holding that the agents needed a warrant before … The device was placed on the outside of the booth. 10-1259, Citation 565 U.S 132 s. Ct. 945, 181 L. Ed 2d 911; United States, petitioner v. Antoine Jones. The Knotts Court held that a person traveling on public roads has no expectation of privacy in his movements, because the vehicle's starting point, direction, stops, or final destination could be seen by anyone else on the road. They helped police tail a vehicle by letting out a short-range signal. [27], Justice Antonin Scalia authored the majority opinion. 2. [9] Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg was joined by Judges David S. Tatel and Thomas B. These types of information can each reveal more about a person than does any individual trip viewed in isolation. "[19] Dreeben argued that it was a trespass, but in United States v. Karo there was also a trespass and, according to Dreeben, Karo held that it "made no difference because the purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to protect privacy interests and meaningful interference [with possessions], not to cover all technical trespasses. [4] This device tracked the vehicle's movements 24 hours a day for four weeks. Instead, it requires them to obtain warrants to do so. Is the use of a device to transmit the location of a vehicle considered a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment? "[41] Alito argued against the majority's reliance on trespass under modern circumstances. [7], Jones argued that his conviction should be overturned because the use of the GPS tracker violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure. [14] In June 2011, the Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari to resolve two questions. Jones, 565 U.S. at 414 (Sotomayor, J., concurring). Technology is changing people's expectations of privacy. [46] In Knotts, a short-distance signal beeper in the defendant's car was tracked during a single trip for less than a day. Concurring justices advocated for the expectation-of-privacy test established in Katz. While driving around public streets or parked in a public are, they reasoned, he had a lesser expectation that his movements would be "private." 93-1260 Argued: November 8, 1994 Decided: April 26, 1995. [64][65], This article is about the 2012 case. Petitioner: Michael R. Dreeben, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Respondent: Antoine Jones, a Washington D.C. nightclub owner. 10-1259), a case addressing the constitutional privacy rights of American citizens in the face of modern tracking systems based on GPS and other technologies..