{"id":7830,"date":"2013-02-06T09:53:03","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T13:47:53","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T13:47:53","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=7830","title":{"rendered":"GA: Thermal imaging is not a proper basis for a search warrant under state law, but PC otherwise exists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A thermal imaging warrant violated Georgia state law because search warrants can only be for \u201ctangible evidence.\u201d There was, however, plenty of probable cause for a search of the house based on everything else known before that, so the search would not be suppressed. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gasupreme.us\/sc-op\/pdf\/s11g1821.pdf\">Brundige v. State<\/a>, 291 Ga. 677, 735 S.E.2d 583 (2012):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Nor do we believe that the term \u201ctangible evidence\u201d as used in the statute otherwise embraces the \u201camorphous heat loss\u201d captured by the thermal imaging used here.  Rather, the word \u201ctangible\u201d must be given some effect, or become mere surplusage.  See Slakman, supra. Although the Court of Appeals noted that  heat  radiating  from a  building is \u201creal and  substantial, rather than imaginary[,]\u201d such a formulation would cause \u201ctangible\u201d to become superfluous in the wording of OCGA \u00a7 17-5-21 (a) (5); there is no such thing as imaginary evidence.  <\/p>\n<p>Giving  the  word \u201ctangible\u201d full  effect,  it  appears  that  the  General Assembly intended \u201ctangible evidence\u201d to mean evidence that is essentially an object with material form that could be touched by a person.  See New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Clarendon  Press  1993) (defining \u201ctangible\u201d as \u201c[a]ble  to  be  touched;  discernible  or perceptible  by  touch;  having material form\u201d; from Latin tangere,  \u201cto touch\u201d); Webster\u2019s Third New International Dictionary, (G. &amp; C. Merriam Co., 1971) (\u201ctangible\u201d means \u201ccapable of being touched: able to be perceived as materially existent, esp. by the sense of touch\u201d); American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992) (\u201ctangible\u201d is that which is  \u201c[d]iscernible by the touch; palpable &#8230; [p]ossible to touch &#8230; real or concrete\u201d).  That meaning does not include the remotely-sensed heat at issue here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=7830\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}