D.Haw.: Pre-Jones GPS use saved by Davis

The placement of a GPS on defendant’s vehicle was authorized by binding precedent at the time, so Jones being decided after the fact requires Davis’s good faith exception be invoked. United States v. Leon, 856 F. Supp. 2d 1188 (D. Haw. 2012):

The United States now concedes that Jones renders the placement and subsequent use of the GPS device unconstitutional. And so, the sole remaining issue in this case is whether the exclusionary rule applies, focusing on whether the agents acted with objective reasonable reliance on then-existing precedent permitting the attachment and subsequent use of a GPS tracking device. Based on the following, the court agrees with the Government that the exclusionary rule does not apply.

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Unlike the placement of a GPS tracking device on the exterior of a vehicle in an area where a defendant has no legitimate expectation of privacy, neither Supreme Court nor Ninth Circuit binding precedent [United States v. McIver, 186 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 1999)] in 2009 authorized the agents to continuously monitor the location of the vehicle in public places for a prolonged period of time. Davis therefore is not directly controlling on this issue. Instead, the court must determine whether the agents exhibited “deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent disregard for Fourth Amendment rights” or whether they acted “with an objectively reasonable good-faith belief that their conduct [was] lawful.” Davis, 131 S. Ct. at 2427. And after examining precedent as of 2009, the court finds that the agents’ conduct in the use of the GPS tracking device was objectively reasonable.