Real time capturing data to trace a "pay-as-you-go cell phone" was not a Fourth Amendment violation because there no reasonable expectation of privacy in that data coming from the phone to the provider. This is no different that just tailing the defendant. United States v. Skinner, 690 F.3d 772, 2012 FED App. 0864P (6th Cir. 2012):

When criminals use modern technological devices to carry out criminal acts and to reduce the possibility of detection, they can hardly complain when the police take advantage of the inherent characteristics of those very devices to catch them. This is not a case in which the government secretly placed a tracking device in someone’s car. The drug runners in this case used pay-as-you-go (and thus presumably more difficult to trace) cell phones to communicate during the cross country shipment of drugs. Unfortunately for the drug runners, the phones were trackable in a way they may not have suspected. The Constitution, however, does not protect their erroneous expectations regarding the undetectability of their modern tools.

The government used data emanating from Melvin Skinner’s pay-as-you-go cell phone to determine its real-time location. This information was used to establish Skinner’s location as he transported drugs along public thoroughfares between Arizona and Tennessee. As a result of tracking the cell phone, DEA agents located Skinner and his son at a rest stop near Abilene, Texas, with a motorhome filled with over 1,100 pounds of marijuana. The district court denied Skinner’s motion to suppress all evidence obtained as a result of the search of his vehicle, and Skinner was later convicted of two counts related to drug trafficking and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The convictions must be upheld as there was no Fourth Amendment violation, and Skinner’s other arguments on appeal lack merit. In short, Skinner did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data emanating from his cell phone that showed its location.

. . .

No such extreme comprehensive tracking is present in this case. Justice Alito’s concurrence and the majority in Jones both recognized that there is little precedent for what constitutes a level of comprehensive tracking that would violate the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 954, 964. Skinner’s case, however, comes nowhere near that line. While Jones involved intensive monitoring over a 28-day period, here the DEA agents only tracked Skinner’s cell phone for three days. Such “relatively short-term monitoring of a person’s movements on public streets accords with expectations of privacy that our society has recognized as reasonable.” Id. at 964 (Alito, J., concurring) (citing Knotts, 460 U.S. at 281–82). Here, the monitoring of the location of the contraband-carrying vehicle as it crossed the country is no more of a comprehensively invasive search than if instead the car was identified in Arizona and then tracked visually and the search handed off from one local authority to another as the vehicles progressed. That the officers were able to use less expensive and more efficient means to track the vehicles is only to their credit.

WSJ: Sixth Circuit: No Expectation of Privacy in Cell Phone GPS Data; Skinning the Fourth Amendment: The Sixth Circuit’s Awful GPS Tracking Decision by Julian Sanchez, Volokh Conspiracy: Sixth Circuit Rules That Pinging a Cell Phone to Determine Its Location is Not a Fourth Amendment “Search” by Orin Kerr.

Police were looking for defendant’s gun because of his alleged “reckless use” of it, and they clearly had probable cause to get a search warrant, and would have except defendant consented. Inevitable discovery was sufficient and the question of consent didn’t have to be decided by the trial court. United States v. Bennett, 491 Fed. Appx. 760 (7th Cir. 2012):

On appeal Bennett argues generally that the gun was obtained through an illegal search and that the evidence is thus permanently tainted and the inevitable-discovery doctrine does not apply. But the district court correctly concluded that the gun was admissible based on inevitable discovery. Even an illegally seized item need not be suppressed if officers would have inevitably discovered it through lawful means. United States v. Stotler, 591 F.3d 935, 940 (7th Cir. 2010). Here the government showed that, even without the challenged search, officers would have obtained a search warrant and recovered the gun. United States v. Marrocco, 578 F.3d 627, 637-38 (7th Cir. 2009); United States v. Tejada, 524 F.3d 809, 813 (7th Cir. 2008). Ealing had probable cause to believe that Bennett committed felony criminal recklessness when he fired a gun in the air in a residential neighborhood, IND. CODE § 35-42-2-2(c)(2)(A), and he saw Bennett enter the house with the gun but return to the porch without it. As the district court noted, it is reasonable to conclude that the police would have continued their efforts to locate the missing gun by obtaining a search warrant, which would have been issued given the "fair probability" that evidence of a crime would be found in the house. See United States v. Miller, 673 F.3d 688, 692 (7th Cir. 2012). Ealing thus could have, and testified that he would have, obtained a search warrant to recover the gun had he not thought that Bennett's mother validly consented to the search.

Defense counsel was not ineffective for advising defendant to not testify at the suppression hearing because of the possibility of false testimony leading to an obstruction enhancement on the Sentencing Guidelines. United States v. Taylor, 492 Fed. Appx. 941 (10th Cir. 2012).*

Inventory of a closed compartment in the door was reasonable when it was discovered during the inventory and no tools were needed to open it. United States v. Cervantes-Perez, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 113028 (D. Minn. July 21, 2012).

Taking all of the facts offered by the government, there was no probable cause to believe that defendant’s vehicle was involved in a crime. Omitted facts would have been helpful, and the affidavit was not devoid of probable cause that the good faith exception should not apply. United States v. Stately, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112782 (D. Minn. July 2, 2012).*

A doctor was convicted of health care fraud. His patient records were first removed by a nurse who was “acting as a whistleblower of sorts,” but later he was found to be acting as a government agent. Removal of records from a mobile lab likely was not a Fourth Amendment violation because the doctor had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the mobile lab shared with others because he made no effort to keep others from the lab. He kept records there three days a week. Nevertheless, that information did not make it into the search warrant application, and there was probable cause from before so there was an independent source from the alleged illegal entry. United States v. Patel, 485 Fed. Appx. 702 (5th Cir. 2012).*

Defendant’s IAC claim against defense counsel on the probable cause question is insufficient as a matter of law because it was preserved for appeal. In any event, defendant never said he’d go to trial instead. United States v. Cox, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 113190 (D. N.J. July 30, 2012).*