GPS Tracking Device Secures Criminal Conviction

In the State of Massachusetts USA, a ruling made on the 17th September 2009 by the state’s highest court ruled that the police have the power under the state’s Declaration of Rights, to break into a suspect’s vehicle to covertly install a GPS tracking device. A warrant would still be required under the terms of the ruling before police could enter a vehicle.

A drug trafficking conviction was upheld by the Supreme Judicial Court after a Cape Cod man was arrested by State Police who had installed a GPS tracking device in his van. The court found the use of GPS devices does not violate the ban on unreasonable search and seizures found in the state’s Declaration of Rights.

There are constraints, though: fifteen days is the maximum length a GPS device can be left in place. The three justices involved in making this ruling upheld the conviction made by the earlier court but insisted that an individual’s privacy rights must be free from continual monitoring by a government body. The crack cocaine dealer received a sentence of twelve to fifteen years after selling cocaine to an undercover police officer from his minivan. Police subsequently installed a GPS tracking device in the vehicle which allowed them to find where he was obtaining his supplies from, as well as catching the dealer in possession of a ball of crack cocaine.