Cell Phone Tracking
I’ve had several questions lately about the authority of law enforcement to track a suspect by obtaining information about contacts between the suspect’s cellular telephone and cellular towers. I’m...
View ArticleWarrantless Cell Phone Tracking: The Fifth Circuit Weighs In
I wrote here about how law enforcement officers may obtain historical information about the location of a suspect’s cellular phone. There have been several developments in the law since then, including...
View ArticleTestimony about Tracking
More and more criminal cases involve electronic tracking. Sometimes the defendant is tracked using GPS, other times using cell site location information. Either way, interesting evidentiary questions...
View ArticleNew Cumulative Supplement to Arrest, Search, and Investigation in North...
The 2014 Cumulative Supplement to Arrest, Search, and Investigation in North Carolina (4th ed. 2011) is now available. It is called a cumulative supplement because it includes the material in the 2013...
View ArticleImportant New Opinion on Cell Phone Tracking
On Tuesday, the Eleventh Circuit ruled, en banc, that law enforcement may obtain historical cell site location information without a search warrant, using a court order based on less than probable...
View ArticleAdvice to Officers After Graham
As I discussed here, the Fourth Circuit recently ruled in United States v. Graham, __ F.3d __, 2015 WL 4637931 (4th Cir. Aug. 5, 2015), that an officer who obtained two suspects’ cell site location...
View ArticleState v. Perry, Cell Site Location Information, and the Exclusionary Rule
Last week, the court of appeals decided State v. Perry. It’s the appellate division’s first foray into cell site location information and a case that raises questions about the status of the...
View ArticleFourth Circuit Reverses Graham: No Warrant Required for Historical Cell Site...
Last year, a panel of the Fourth Circuit decided United States v. Graham, 796 F.3d 332 (4th Cir. 2015). The panel ruled that “the government conducts a search under the Fourth Amendment when it obtains...
View ArticleSerial, Cell Site Location Information, and Experts . . . on a Wednesday
It’s not Thursday, but I’m going to throw it back a few years to 2014. Like the rest of the nerds I know, I became obsessed that year with the podcast Serial. The first season of that podcast...
View ArticleU.S. Supreme Court Preview: Carpenter v. United States
In June, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Carpenter v. United States (No. 16-402) (docket here), a case involving the intersection of technology and the Fourth Amendment and...
View ArticleReal-Time Cell Phone Tracking Update, Including a New Case
The Court of Appeals of North Carolina recently decided a case about police obtaining real-time location information from a suspect’s cellular service provider. The case does not address the principal...
View ArticleWarrantless Cell Phone Tracking: The Fifth Circuit Weighs In
I wrote here about how law enforcement officers may obtain historical information about the location of a suspect’s cellular phone. There have been several developments in the law since then, including...
View ArticleTestimony about Tracking
More and more criminal cases involve electronic tracking. Sometimes the defendant is tracked using GPS, other times using cell site location information. Either way, interesting evidentiary questions...
View ArticleNew Cumulative Supplement to Arrest, Search, and Investigation in North...
The 2014 Cumulative Supplement to Arrest, Search, and Investigation in North Carolina (4th ed. 2011) is now available. It is called a cumulative supplement because it includes the material in the 2013...
View ArticleImportant New Opinion on Cell Phone Tracking
On Tuesday, the Eleventh Circuit ruled, en banc, that law enforcement may obtain historical cell site location information without a search warrant, using a court order based on less than probable...
View ArticleAdvice to Officers After Graham
As I discussed here, the Fourth Circuit recently ruled in United States v. Graham, __ F.3d __, 2015 WL 4637931 (4th Cir. Aug. 5, 2015), that an officer who obtained two suspects’ cell site location...
View ArticleSupreme Court Rules that Obtaining Cell Site Location Information Is a Search
On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a long-awaited opinion in Carpenter v. United States. The Court held that when law enforcement obtains long-term cell site location information from a suspect’s...
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