For the first time, the state's highest court ruled today that the state Declaration of Rights allows police to break into a suspect’s car to secretly install GPS tracking devices, provided they have a warrant before they act.www.boston.com...
In a unanimous ruling written by Justice Judith Cowin, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the drug trafficking conviction of Everett H. Connolly, a Cape Cod man who was tracked by State Police after they installed a GPS device in his minivan.
The court said using GPS devices as an investigative tool – which can require police to secretly break into a vehicle to install the device – does not violate the ban on unreasonable search and seizures found in the state’s Declaration of Rights.
“We hold that warrants for GPS monitoring of a vehicle may be issued,’’ Cowin wrote. “The Commonwealth must establish, before a magistrate… that GPS monitoring of the vehicle will produce evidence’’ that a crime has been committed, or will be committed in the near future.
The SJC said the devices can only be installed for 15 days. Generally, search warrants are in effect for just seven days.
