New Law Review Article: GPS “Bullets” and the Fourth Amendment

Matthew F. Meyers, GPS “Bullets” and the Fourth Amendment, 4 Wake Forest L. Rev. Online 18 (2014).

Abstract:

For as long as there have been cars, there have been car chases. A car chase connotes a dangerous, high-speed dash through city streets. Fleeing from justice, the criminal finds himself weaving between cars and driving onto sidewalks to evade his pursuers. In the popular imagination, a car chase entails the possibility of danger and injury to the public.

Law enforcement’s traditional approach to flight has only exacerbated the potential for danger. Many officers believe that they need to catch fleeing suspects “if it’s the last thing (they’ll) ever do.” With an ever-proliferating number of new technologies that law enforcement can employ against suspects, this cavalier attitude no longer seems necessary. But courts have refused to limit officers’ discretion as to how to end a chase. As recently as 2007, the Supreme Court has held that an officer may use deadly force to stop a suspect fleeing by car.

In 2006, Starchase LLC., a small Virginia-based startup, began pre-commercial testing of Starchase, “a real-time tagging and tracking tool to reduce dangerous high-speed pursuits.” There are two technologies at work in the Starchase system: a compressed-air launcher and a GPS Bullet—a small cylindrical tube with a GPS tag. The launcher is mounted into the front-grill of a police cruiser. When an officer is chasing a fleeing suspect, he can load the GPS Bullet into the launcher and fire it at the suspect’s car. The bullet attaches to the car. In principle, officers may cease pursuit and track the car. A suspect will then voluntarily reduce his speed in order to blend in. Once he does, officers converge on his position without exposing the public to harm. Starchase is a more sophisticated version of the helicopter flyover, with one basic advantage: the suspect does not know he is being tracked.

Although Starchase’s efficacy remains speculative, the technology has come about at a fairly unique point in constitutional history. The judiciary has so far struggled to apply traditional Fourth Amendment doctrines to new technologies like GPS tracking. The Supreme Court’s most recent attempt was in United States v. Jones, where it held that the placement of a GPS tracker on a suspect’s vehicle constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment. Since Starchase is a GPS tracker that attaches to a vehicle, the Jones test applies. The purpose of this Article is to analyze Starchase’s constitutionality by considering how the general principles of Jones and its progeny will apply in real life situations. I conclude that while it may be unconstitutional in normal circumstances to deploy Starchase without a warrant, the exigencies of a police pursuit justify its use. It is, therefore, constitutional.

[Law review articles are reviewed by Prof. Andrew G. Ferguson, UDC School of Law.]