CA4: Davis saves pre-Jones GPS installations in the Fourth Circuit

Prior to Jones’s GPS ruling, Knotts governed all the GPS cases in this circuit, so Davis good faith has to apply to a 2011 GPS installation. United States v. Stephens, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 15920 (4th Cir. August 19, 2014):

Despite the ample body of federal law existing in 2011 that supported warrantless GPS usage similar to what happened in this case, Stephens contends that none of those cases was binding precedent in the Fourth Circuit and, for that reason, the exclusionary rule must apply. In essence, Stephens relies on a negative implication: in his view, the Davis Court’s application of the good-faith inquiry in the specific circumstance where an officer has reasonably relied on binding appellate precedent precludes application of the good-faith inquiry in the slightly different context where an officer reasonably relied on non-binding precedent, no matter how extensive and well-developed that precedent may be.

We have serious doubts about Stephens’ narrow view of the good-faith inquiry. Nothing in Davis itself supports such an interpretation. Instead, Davis merely establishes the inapplicability of the exclusionary rule in one specific circumstance. Davis does not, however, alter the general good-faith inquiry which, we reiterate, requires consideration of whether a reasonably well-trained officer would have known that a search was illegal in light of all of the circumstances. See generally Leon, 468 U.S. at 918 (noting that “suppression of evidence … should be ordered only on a case-by-case basis”). Moreover, as noted, we have not previously limited the good-faith inquiry only to the precise factual circumstances addressed by the Supreme Court.