The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s warrantless placement of a global positioning system device on a suspect’s car prior to a change in U.S. Supreme Court precedent falls within the good-faith exception to the Fourth Amendment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held on Friday.
Addressing a recent shift in Supreme Court case law on the use of GPS and other tracking devices, the circuit said the use of the device in an investigation into cocaine and heroin distribution in Vermont did not require suppression of the evidence because the agents had a good-faith belief that their actions comported with the Fourth Amendment.
