The use of Automatic License Plate Readers to track movements of defendant’s car can’t (yet) equate with Carpenter’s CSLI. Maybe someday, but not here. There are many differences on this record. United States v. Sturdivant, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109054 (N.D. Ohio June 9, 2025):
Accordingly, the record in this case presents enough significant differences from Carpenter that that ruling, in the Court’s view, does not provide the proper analytical framework. To be sure, sophisticated systems like Flock and ELSAG represent “a technological advance” that portends levels of surveillance different in kind from those based on conventional security cameras. United States v. Brown, No. 19-cr-949, 2021 WL 4963602, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 26, 2021). “If the technology evolves” to engender surveillance capabilities comparable to those in Carpenter, “then perhaps in the future a warrant may be required.” Yang, 958 F. 3d at 864 (Bea, J., concurring). But on the record before it, the Court cannot say that this case presents “dragnet type law enforcement practices” constituting a Fourth Amendment search. See United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 284 (1983).
However, that day might well be on the horizon. The ALPR surveillance in this case–yielding at least 26 photographs of Mr. Sturdivant’s car over six weeks from an unknown number of total search results–was more extensive than that in many federal cases thus far. Cf. United States v. Toombs, 671 F. Supp. 3d 1329, 1334 (E.D. Ala. 2023) (single data point); United States v. Graham, No. 21-645, 2022 WL 4132488, at *5 (D.N.J. Sept. 12, 2022) (same); Yang, 958 F.3d at 855-56 (two images captured one second apart); United States v. Porter, 2022 WL 124563, at *1 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 13, 2022) (two images); United States v. Mapson, 96 F.4th 1323, 1334 (11th Cir. 2024) (three locations); United States v. Rubin, 556 F. Supp. 3d 1123, 1125 (N.D. Cal. 2021) (“several” results); Jiles, 2024 WL 891956, at *3 (“five or six” results); Brown, 2021 WL 4963602, at *3 (“about two dozen snapshots” over ten weeks); Martin, 753 F. Supp. 3d at 459 (one Flock query returning the maximum of 2,500 results); but cf. Bowers, 2021 WL 4775977, at *1 (106 results in 33 locations over 4.5 months). Compared to most other cases involving ALPR, the record here shows a qualitative leap forward, placing the evidence generated from such technology at risk in the absence of a warrant.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court DENIES Defendant’s motion to suppress. (ECF No. 92; ECF No. 93.) In doing so, the Court limits its analysis to the facts and record presented. It does not purport to address all possible manifestations of ALPR data searches. After all, “Fourth Amendment cases must be decided on the facts of each case, not by extravagant generalizations.” Dow Chem., 476 U.S. at 238 n.5.
