The search under the search warrant in this case is not suppressed. While there was a traffic stop that could not be justified, it is excised from the affidavit for the search warrant, and the remainder still shows probable cause. While there was information that was over three months old, “the evidence was not stale because it described a firmly entrenched, widespread, and continuing narcotics trafficking organization.” There is nexus to the home of those involved in drug trafficking as a place where the drugs would be kept. Furthermore, GPS tracking on a cell phone used in drug trafficking put it regularly at the home, and there were officer observations of comings and goings to the home. United States v. Silva, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 183043 (W.D. Wash. December 31, 2012):

The Ninth Circuit has recognized that "[i]n the case of drug dealers, evidence is likely to be found where the dealers live." United States v. Terry, 911 F.2d 272, 276 (9th Cir. 1990) (quoting United States v. Angulo-Lopez, 791 F.2d 1394, 1399 (9th Cir.1986)). Under the law of this Circuit, the Affidavit's details regarding Palacios-Rodriguez's lengthy involvement in the DTO, including supplying cocaine to others in the conspiracy and participating in other narcotics transactions while living at the Edmonds Apartment, was sufficient basis to believe that contraband might be found at the residence. ...

Lack of a written policy does not make an inventory invalid. Bertine requires a “standard criteria” and following it is all that is required. Leaving defendant’s car in a Wal-Mart parking lot is not required by the police. United States v. Cartrette, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 26698 (4th Cir. December 31, 2012):

In the instant case, no one was immediately available to take custody of Cartrette's vehicle, and a reasonable officer could have concluded that it constituted a nuisance where it was parked, in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Even if we credit Cartrette's testimony that his brother was nearby – testimony the district court did not find credible, see J.A. 353 – the police were not required to stay on the scene and wait for the brother to return. See Brown, 787 F.2d at 932 (impoundment reasonable when no known individual is "immediately available to take custody of the car").

Furthermore, we are not persuaded by Cartrette's argument that the Conway Police Department's lack of a written impoundment policy renders the impoundment unlawful. Bertine requires standard criteria for impounding vehicles, 479 U.S. at 375, but it does not require the criteria to be in writing. Here, the testimony of Officers Ridgeway and Hardee indicates there was a standard procedure to impound vehicles when no one is immediately available to take custody of the vehicle, and that they understood and followed that procedure. The district court was entitled to credit that testimony.

Notes: (1) Wal-Mart allows people with RVs to park on store parking lots overnight, but that does not by any means mean that a vehicle can be left there for days on end. Here, the police were not required to wait for the brother at all. If he were coming that day, what would be the harm in leaving the car on the Wal-Mart parking lot for a half day or even a day? Wal-Mart would clearly not care. But, there is something else more obviously at work: The allegedly non-pretextual search of the trunk of the car that turned up the shotgun. If there was no inventory, well, then, the police could not have found it and this case would not exist.

(2) Bertine requires a “standard criteria,” and a lack of a writing is an open invitation to abuse. Any police department larger than two officers ought to have a written inventory policy by now. Inventory has been recognized over 35 years since South Dakota v. Opperman, probably since before this searching officer was born. It's not that hard to come up with a policy since almost all departments of any repute have one.

New law review article: Stephen E. Henderson, After United States v. Jones, After the Fourth Amendment Third Party Doctrine, __ N.C. J.L. & Tech. __ (2013):

Abstract:

United States v. Jones, in which the Court unanimously held that month-long Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking of a vehicle constitutes a Fourth Amendment search, did not in itself tell us too much. The government took an egregious position, and therefore lost nine to zero. We now apply a resurrected trespass-based conception of search, but we know extremely little about how to do so and what results it will alter. We know five Justices believe long-term location tracking is typically a search because it invades a reasonable, seemingly empirical, expectation of privacy. And we know one Justice is willing to reconsider the entire third party doctrine, which holds that one typically retains no Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy in information conveyed to another.

But when we take a broader view, it is not merely one Justice who will not apply the third party doctrine in a strong form, and thus I have previously written the doctrine’s obituary. Jones fits nicely within a string of cases in which the Court is cautiously developing new standards of Fourth Amendment protections, rather than declaring generally applicable categorical rules. Given that it was a grand pronouncement of an allegedly categorical rule in United States v. Miller that has caused much of the trouble, this strikes me as a sensible way to proceed. I expect the road will not be smooth, but we are used to zigs and zags in the Fourth Amendment. It is hard to imagine anything less when the High Court is attempting to ferret out what is reasonable, which requires balancing private and law enforcement interests, and when technology, policing, crime, and social norms are constantly in flux.

Much of the ground has been plowed before, both by myself and others dating back many years, which calls for brevity. Indeed, Jones will surely spark a new crop of Fourth Amendment papers, the authors of some of which will read what has gone before and some of whom will not. But Jones provides a nice hinge around which to discuss where the Fourth Amendment has been and where it might be going – and more generally where citizens’ protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, which do not depend solely upon the Fourth Amendment, might be going. Here I will content myself with that relatively high level, and like many others I will begin in other fora to drill down into specifics of how the Fourth Amendment should apply to the particular techniques of location tracking.