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Sunday, August 31, 2008

Law - "Police Using G.P.S. Units as Evidence in Crimes"

That is the headline to this AP article published today in the NY Times. Some quotes:

Like millions of motorists, Eric Hanson used a Global Positioning System device in his Chevrolet TrailBlazer to find his way around. He probably did not expect that prosecutors would use it, too — to help convict him of killing four family members.

Prosecutors in suburban Chicago analyzed data from the Garmin G.P.S. device to pinpoint where Mr. Hanson had been on the morning after his parents were fatally shot and his sister and brother-in-law bludgeoned to death in 2005. He was convicted of the killings this year and sentenced to death.

Mr. Hanson’s trial was among recent criminal cases in which the authorities used such navigation devices to help establish a defendant’s whereabouts. Experts say such evidence will almost certainly become more common in court as the systems become more affordable and show up in more vehicles. * * *

Critics, however, say the police should be allowed to acquire global positioning data only by getting a warrant. Renée Hutchins, a University of Maryland law professor, wrote an article recently suggesting Global Positioning System data was protected under the Fourth Amendment.

“I think that in the last couple of years,” Ms. Hutchins said, “people are starting to be aware that if they have these units in their car, people can keep track of you. I think it’s a growing public awareness. The problem is that most people feel like, ‘I’m not doing anything wrong, so who cares?’ But I think that’s the wrong way of looking at it.”

Here is a longer version of the story, by Mitch Stacy of the AP, as published in USAToday.

And the ILB was able to locate the law journal article referenced. Written by Renée Hutchins of the U. of Md. School of Law, here is the 58-page article, "Tied Up in Knotts?" GPS and the Fourth Amendment" 55 UCLA Law Review 1 (2007).

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 31, 2008 09:58 AM
Posted to General Law Related