U.S. Supreme Court Weighs In on New Rules for Warrants
Newport Beach, Orange County - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed on Monday to bar police from installing GPS technology to track suspects without first getting a judge's approval and warrant.
This Supreme Court decision follows the appeals of a Washington, D.C., nightclub owner who police put a GPS device on his Jeep and tracked for four weeks, which helped link him to a house used to stash money and drugs. He was sentenced to life in prison before an appeals court overturned his conviction.
The bottom line, all nine justices agreed, in what is generally a very divided court, that the GPS monitoring on the Jeep violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Basically most law enforcement rarely have problems with obtaining a judge's approval for a warrant, says Newport Beach criminal attorney Michael L. Guisti, but in obtaining a warrant to use a GPS it remains to be seen just how much of a task that may be.
In the early stages of a police investigation obtaining a warrant to install a GPS on a suspect's vehicle may prove difficult given insufficient evidence, says Guisti.
The process of obtaining a warrant generally involves the police going to the district attorney with their information, and the DA presenting their evidence to the judge, which the judge will either approve or decline, says Guisti.
It's very important to know that police cannot search any other premises or persons not listed in the warrant and any evidence obtained outside of the warrant can be thrown out of court, explains Guisti.
The judge must fulfill two requirements before issuing the warrant. The first, the judge has probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, and second, evidence of the crime is likely to be found in the place(s) detailed in the search warrant, explains Guisti.
A very important point Guisti stresses, if police searched your home or other place pursuant to a search warrant it doesn't always mean it will stand up in court as police often provide judges with misleading or incomplete information to obtain a warrant, which is why you need a professional defense attorney.
If you've been served a warrant it's very important for you to contact our Orange County warrant attorneys at the Law Offices of Michael L. Guisti right away, because our legal defense team can review the warrant to see if it was "served" properly, because any items seized or people arrested outside of the warrant is a violation of your rights and can be thrown out of court.
We have over a decade of experience winning cases for our clients in the Southern California courts, so please, call us now.
