NC: After Grady, sex offender GPS monitoring requires a reasonableness hearing on def’s request

Post-Grady, the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment required the trial court conduct a hearing if the defendant objects to GPS monitoring. State v. Stroessenreuther, 2016 N.C. App. LEXIS 1240 (Dec. 6, 2016):

We reject Stroessenreuther’s facial challenge. That challenge is premised on the notion that, because the satellite-based monitoring statute does not expressly authorize trial courts to consider the reasonableness of the monitoring under the Fourth Amendment, the law is facially unconstitutional. But the statute neither permits nor prohibits trial courts from addressing this constitutional argument—it is simply silent. As a result, trial courts are free to address this Fourth Amendment issue, and hold a hearing if necessary, when defendants assert it. Indeed, this Court has issued several recent decisions discussing the procedures trial courts should use when a Fourth Amendment argument is raised under Grady. These decisions confirm that trial courts can (and must) consider a Fourth Amendment challenge to satellite-based monitoring when a defendant raises it. Accordingly, Stroessenreuther’s facial challenge is meritless.

The State concedes that Stroessenreuther’s as-applied challenge is meritorious, and we agree. Under Grady, the trial court was required to consider the reasonableness of the satellite-based monitoring when Stroessenreuther challenged that monitoring on Fourth Amendment grounds. The trial court did not conduct that inquiry in this case, and we must therefore vacate the imposition of satellite-based monitoring. We remand this case for the trial court to conduct the necessary reasonableness inquiry described in our decisions in State v. Blue, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 783 S.E.2d 524, 527 (2016) and State v. Morris, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 783 S.E.2d 528, 530 (2016).