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VA upholds GPS tracking of a suspected serial rapist's car involving real-time tracking

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

The Virginia Court of Appeals today upheld GPS tracking of a suspected serial rapist's car against a Fourth Amendment and a state constitutional challenge. Merely placing the GPS device on the defendant's truck bumper in a public place was not a seizure and neither was monitoring it. Foltz v. Commonwealth, No. 0521-09-4 (Va. App. September 7, 2010): The GPS system did not take pictures nor allow the police to hear any conversations. It could not track particularly well “in a covered parking area,” but could provide general information in any place with cell phone service and could send a signal through glass and plastic. The system archived the information that it collected, but the police could also track the GPS device in real time...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on September 07, 2010 (boomark / email).