UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

JAMIE STANTON, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant, 

v. 

UNKNOWN AGENT OR AGENCY that 

placed a GPS tracking device on plaintiff’s 

car 2 years ago in Colorado; JOHN DOE 

(1), officer of the Oklahoma City Police 

Department and other unknown officers; 

JOHN DOE (2), officer of the Putnam City 

Police Department and other unknown 

officers; JOHN DOE (3), Officer of the 

Green County Sheriff's Department; JOHN 

DOE (4), Officers of the Eutaw, AL Police 

Department; JOHN DOE (5), Officers of 

the Wichita Police Department and other 

unknown officers; JOHN DOE (6), 

Officers of the Sedgwick County Sheriff's 

Department, 

 Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 17-3098 

(D.C. No. 2:17-CV-02120-DDC-KGG) 

(D. Kan.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before BRISCOE, HARTZ, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

 

*

 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously 

that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of this appeal. See

Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted 

without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under 

the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, 

however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 

32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

August 31, 2017

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court
2 

Plaintiff Jamie Stanton believes he has been subjected to surveillance by numerous 

unnamed people for several years. Proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis, he filed suit 

against John Doe defendants in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. 

The district court sua sponte dismissed his complaint for failure to state a claim upon 

which relief may be granted under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), which authorizes such 

dismissals for in forma pauperis complaints. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 

1291 and affirm. 

Our standard of review is well-established. We review the district-court decision 

de novo. See Kay v. Bemis, 500 F.3d 1214, 1217 (10th Cir. 2007). “We apply the same 

standard of review for dismissals under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) that we employ for Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim.” Id. “In 

the Rule 12(b)(6) context, . . . . we look to the specific allegations in the complaint to 

determine whether they plausibly support a legal claim for relief.” Id. at 1218 (internal 

quotation marks and citations omitted). Although “we must construe a pro se appellant’s 

complaint liberally[,] [t]his liberal treatment is not without limits, and this court has 

repeatedly insisted that pro se parties follow the same rules of procedure that govern 

other litigants.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 

Plaintiff’s complaint describes the following events, among others: Beginning in 

late 2013, while he was living in Aurora, Colorado, other cars regularly followed his car 

two car lengths behind him. On a road trip from Colorado to Michigan in late 2013, cars 

drove side by side behind him on the interstate highway, “each maintaining about a half 

mile to a mile behind [his] car.” Aplt. App., Vol. I at 6 (emphasis omitted). Starting in 
3 

2014, officers of the Putnam City, Oklahoma Police Department daily drove past him 

during his five-block walk to work in Putnam City, Oklahoma. On a road trip from 

Oklahoma to Alabama in 2016, cars followed his rental car side by side on the interstate 

highway about a mile behind him. When he moved to Eutaw, Alabama, in 2016, either a 

local sheriff or a Eutaw city police car arrived at his destination each time he went to 

town on five consecutive days. In Wichita, Kansas, in 2016 police cars followed him for 

“a few blocks to a mile” daily. Aplt. App., Vol. I at 9. 

His observations extend beyond being followed by cars. The cellphones of 

passersby ring or vibrate when he is nearby. “[T]hey look at their phone, then reads [sic] 

whatever info they have just received, and then looks up [sic] and start looking around, 

then they look back down at their phones, or try to look away while responding to 

whatever info they had received via text.” Id. at 7. Gas station attendants watch him 

while he pumps gas. In his Oklahoma apartment the heat or air-conditioning would turn 

on immediately when he entered the apartment. In his Wichita apartment, his downstairs 

neighbor regularly bangs on the wall. In that apartment in early 2017, when he heard a 

helicopter flying overhead, his refrigerator would begin to run. He moved his refrigerator 

from the wall and found a three-foot-by-two-foot hole behind it. 

Plaintiff infers from these alleged facts that he is being surveilled and that a 

tracking device had been placed on his car sometime before December 2013 while he was 

living in Aurora. But he has not attempted to locate or remove the tracking device, nor 

has he offered any physical evidence that such a device exists. His complaint states, 

“I’ve thought of taking it off (not sure what it looks like but willing to give it a shot), but 
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I could not stop whoever was behind this from putting it back on, right? By leaving it on, 

I at least, would know ‘when’ someone was following me?” Id. at 6. 

Plaintiff appears to raise claims that these alleged activities violate his rights under 

the Fourth Amendment; Article 4, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution; the Fifth 

Amendment Due Process Clause; the Fourteenth Amendment Privileges or Immunities, 

Due Process, and Equal Protection Clauses; and Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; 

and he also claims racial profiling and racism. Aside from the Fourth Amendment claim, 

we fail to discern, and Plaintiff does not explain, how any of the alleged activities could 

provide the basis for a cause of action. He does state that he is an African American, but 

provides no reason to believe that he is targeted on that ground or that he has suffered any 

racial discrimination for which he would be entitled to relief. 

As for Fourth Amendment rights, following and observing a person does not 

ordinarily implicate those rights. See United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 412 (2012)

(“[O]ur cases suggest that . . . visual observation [even by a large team of agents, using 

multiple vehicles and aerial assistance] is constitutionally permissible.”); United States v. 

Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 281 (1983) (“A person travelling in an automobile on public 

thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place 

to another.”). But Plaintiff may have a claim for relief if law enforcement had placed a 

tracking device on his car. See Jones, 565 U.S. at 404 (“We hold that the Government’s 

installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the 

vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search.’” (footnote omitted)). The facts alleged by 

Plaintiff, however, although consistent with surveillance, do not raise the likelihood of 
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his being surveilled from possible to plausible. More importantly, after several years of 

alleged surveillance, he has no physical evidence of the tracking device that he believes 

to be on his car, nor has he tried to locate or remove it. And he raises no reason for the 

alleged surveillance in multiple states beyond a speculation that it is meant “to abuse and 

to harass, pure and simple.” Aplt. App., Vol. I at 6. He admits that law enforcement has 

not approached him, questioned him, or taken him into custody during this time. With no 

allegation of physical evidence, credible motive, or actual police contact, Plaintiff’s 

claims of being surveilled and having a tracking device placed on his car do not meet the 

standard of plausibility required to survive 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). 

I. CONCLUSION 

 We AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s complaint. 

Entered for the Court 

Harris L Hartz 

Circuit Judge