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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
An Indiana man may beat a drug prosecution after the state's highest court threw out a search warrant against him late last week. The search warrant was based on the idea that the man had "stolen" a GPS tracking device belonging to the government. But Indiana's Supreme Court concluded that he'd done no such thing—and the cops should have known it.
Last November, we wrote about the case of Derek Heuring, an Indiana man the Warrick County Sheriff's Office suspected of selling meth. Authorities got a warrant to put a GPS tracker on Heuring's car, getting a stream of data on his location for six days. But then the data stopped.
Officers suspected Heuring had discovered and removed the tracking device. After waiting for a few more days, they got a warrant to search his home and a barn belonging to his father. They argued the disappearance of the tracking device was evidence that Heuring had stolen it.
During their search, police found the tracking device and some methamphetamine. They charged Heuring with drug-related crimes as well as theft of the GPS device.
But at trial, Heuring's lawyers argued that the warrant to search the home and barn had been illegal. An application for a search warrant must provide probable cause to believe a crime was committed. But removing a small, unmarked object from your personal vehicle is no crime at all, Heuring's lawyers argued. Heuring had no way of knowing what the device was or who it belonged to—and certainly no obligation to leave the device on his vehicle.
An Indiana appeals court ruled against Heuring last year. But Indiana's Supreme Court seemed more sympathetic to Heuring's case during oral arguments last November.
"I'm really struggling with how is that theft," said Justice Steven David during November's oral arguments.
The appeals court[*] decision is available online as a pdf.
Also at: Washington Post and The Indiana Lawyer.
[*] Updated at 2020-02-26 01:16:51 UTC. Previously, this link suggested it was to the decision by the Indiana Supreme Court. This was, in fact, a link to the decision from the Indiana Appeals Court. We regret the error.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2020, @10:27PM
When I was in college studying Automotive Technology (Basically advanved mechanics towards dealing with emissions systems, or on another track, advanced body repair/replacement) we had a long discussion on OBD technology, from pre-OBD, like what Bosch, GM, and Ford were using in the 1970s/1980s to OBD-I from the mid 80s to 1994-95 and OBD-II which was from 1992-1993 upwards (most models didn't switch until the 1994/95 hard mandate, and the Japanese were kept less apprised of changes, which is why Toyota discontinued the original pickup in 1994, having discovered after updating their ECU that it was not compliant with alterations to the standard between their last meeting on it and its release, notably mandating the connect be inside the passenger compartment and that it had to be a specific connector design.) Cars which had chassis changes before 1995 got OBD-II between 1 and 2 years early, as well as cars which had to migrate from the automatic seatbelts to airbags (I don't remember the exact year that was mandated.) Since that time airbag, ecu and safety requirements have been the major forced change for many models of cars.
Getting back to the point at hand, OBD-III (Or IIb/Wireless as it was sometimes called) was going to mandate a cellular transmitter in the car ECU which would periodicly phone home to the government with your latest emissions readings and in the event your car started failing smog, immediately require a smog check instead of the current system of every 1-2 years that most metropolitan areas or states have. Due to cost and concerns over surveillance aspects it was not implemented at that time (late 90s to early-mid 00s) although the canbus aspects became mandated as the single protocol for all later OBD-II vehicles, which now encompasses many motorcycles as well as tractor trailers, although not all of the systems are OBD compliant (I am also unsure of the connector status on trucks, but motorcycle connectors are still varied and proprietary.)