DC: Probationer on GPS monitoring could be checked against crime data to connect him to crime without violating 4A

Defendant was on supervised release and was required to wear a GPS monitor. After a crime, probation officers checked to see if perchance any of their probationers were at the scene at the time, and defendant was. The examination of the records was not a Fourth Amendment violation. Moreover, defendant fails in his argument he was set up to fail with the GPS monitor. The trial court suppressed but the court of appeals reversed. United States v. Jackson, 2019 D.C. App. LEXIS 346 (Aug. 22, 2019):

We reverse. First, as a threshold matter, we hold that CSOSA’s imposition of GPS monitoring on Mr. Jackson without judicial authorization was a constitutional “special needs” search; it was constitutional because his reasonable expectation of privacy as a convicted offender on probation was diminished and was outweighed by the strong governmental interests in effective probation supervision to deter and detect further criminal activity on his part and encourage his rehabilitation. We reject, as unsupported by the record, Mr. Jackson’s claim that CSOSA placed him on GPS monitoring as a subterfuge to enable the police to avoid having to comply with the warrant and probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment. Second, we conclude that Mr. Jackson had no objectively reasonable expectation that CSOSA would withhold the GPS tracking data from the police. The limited police examination of that data—which focused solely on determining whether any monitored CSOSA supervisee was present during the armed robbery (and if so, where that supervisee went immediately afterwards)—therefore did not violate Mr. Jackson’s Fourth Amendment rights.