Court rejects govt. use of GPS tracking; Reverse sentence of accused drug-ring master

Vatic Note:   I find it extremely interesting that a technicality in the law allowed this Huge drug dealer, in fact, a ring master, to go free when so many who were proven innocent after conviction, are still sitting in jail with no one willing to release them, using the justification that "they were found guilty and thus must serve out their sentence", and that includes death penalty cases. .   Then it entered my mind that many in our leadership are involved either in the actual drug dealings and profits going on, or in the money laundering side of the Business and/or are being compensated for prisoners for the private-for-profit prison system contracts, such as prosecutors and judges,  however, this one did not fit in any of these categories so the only explanation left,  which is pure speculation,  is this man had friends in high places whose income and profits were going to be affected by his arrest and incarceration.  Thus he got released to save others from exposure.  We will see. But in any case our judicial system is bass ackwards.  The guilty, if part of the elite, don't even get arrested for blatant crimes,   and the average citizen/middle class voter,  is now going to jail for what used to be civil offenses handled by civil courts.   It tells us volumes about whether we truly live in free country now. 

Court rejects govt. use of GPS tracking
Reverse sentence of accused drug-ring master
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/6/court-rejects-govt-use-gps-tracking/print/

By Jim McElhatton

Ruling that federal agents erred in attaching a satellite tracking device to a vehicle without a search warrant, a federal appeals court Friday reversed the life sentence of man accused of running a major Washington drug ring.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District found that the government's use of GPS technology to track the defendant Antoine Jones's Jeep violated the Fourth Amendment.



Civil liberties groups that aided in the appeal of Jones, whose case involved the largest cocaine seizure in city history, called the ruling an important legal victory for privacy rights.

The three-judge ruling called the GPS information key to the federal prosecution of Jones, who owned Club Levels in Northeast Washington across the street from the Metropolitan Police Department's Fifth District headquarters.

"The GPS data were essential to the government's case," the court ruled. "By combining them with Jones's cell-phone records the government was able to paint a picture of Jones's movements that made credible the allegation that he was involved in drug trafficking."

Stephen Leckar, one of the attorneys on the Jones appeal, said the ruling "recognizes the Fourth Amendment's continued significance in promoting privacy in a high-tech age."

"The decision simply tells law enforcement agents that they need a judge's decision before trespassing on a person's car and attaching a device that tracks and records him or her relentlessly over time and space."

The decision was also hailed by outside groups that aided in the appeal.

"Today's decision brings the Fourth Amendment into the 21st century," Arthur Spitzer, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area, said in a statement announcing the decision.

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which also worked on the case, said she hoped other courts grappling with the same issue would follow the decision.

"The court correctly recognized the important differences between limited surveillance of public activities possible through visual surveillance ... and the sort of extended, invasive, pervasive, always-on tracking that GPS devices allow," she said.

Government lawyers had argued Jones's movements were public anyway because police could have followed him everywhere he went on public roads, but the court rejected that argument.

Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, said prosecutors were "studying the ruling" Friday. He declined to comment further on whether they would appeal the decision.

The case was investigate by the Metropolitan Police Department and FBI joint Safe Streets Task Force.

Prosecutors said Jones ran a drug ring that involved at least nine other defendants that spanned from 2003 to 2005 involving hundreds of kilograms of cocaine shipped from Mexico. Executing search warrants in 2005, authorities said they seized 97 kilograms of cocaine from various locations in the District and Maryland — the largest cocaine seizure in area history, officials said.

But Jones's attorney at trial argued that the case was based on the government's interpretations of what it called coded telephone calls and the use of informants with motives to testify for the government and against Jones.

"I am very happy for Mr. Jones and his family," the trial attorney, A. Eduardo Balarezo, said Friday in reaction to the appeals court decision. "We always felt that this issue was very important but that it was not fully considered at trial."

© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC.

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