Title: Commonwealth v. Johnson
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-12483
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: March 26, 2019

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SJC-12483 
 
COMMONWEALTH  vs.  JAMIE B. JOHNSON. 
 
 
 
Plymouth.     September 5, 2018. - March 26, 2019. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & 
Kafker, JJ. 
 
 
Breaking and Entering.  Larceny.  Global Positioning System 
Device.  Constitutional Law, Search and seizure.  Search 
and Seizure, Probationer, Expectation of privacy.  
Practice, Criminal, Motion to suppress, Probation. 
 
 
 
 
Indictments found and returned in the Superior Court 
Department on March 14, 2014. 
 
 
A pretrial motion to suppress evidence was heard by 
Cornelius J. Moriarty, II, J., and the cases were heard by 
Jeffrey A. Locke, J. 
 
 
The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for 
direct appellate review. 
 
 
 
Timothy St. Lawrence for the defendant. 
 
Gail M. McKenna, Assistant District Attorney (Brian S. 
Fahy, Assistant District Attorney, also present) for the 
Commonwealth. 
 
Matthew Spurlock, Committee for Public Counsel Services, 
for Committee for Public Counsel Services & another, amici 
curiae, submitted a brief. 
2 
 
 
Maura Healey, Attorney General, & Sarah M. Joss, Special 
Assistant Attorney General, for Massachusetts Probation Service, 
amicus curiae, submitted a brief. 
 
 
 
KAFKER, J.  Following a jury-waived trial, the defendant 
was convicted of two counts of breaking and entering in the 
daytime, G. L. c. 266, § 18; one count of breaking and entering 
in the nighttime, G. L. c. 266, § 16; two counts of larceny over 
$250, G. L. c. 266, § 30; and one count of larceny of $250 or 
less, G. L. c. 266, § 30.  At trial, the Commonwealth produced 
evidence matching the time and location of these crimes to 
historical global positioning system (GPS) location data 
recorded from the GPS monitoring device (GPS device) that was 
attached to the defendant as a condition of his probation.  
Before trial, the defendant had moved to suppress this evidence, 
arguing that the Commonwealth's act of accessing and reviewing 
this GPS location data was an unreasonable search under the 
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 14 
of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.  The motion was 
denied. 
 
On appeal, the defendant claims that (i) the motion judge 
erred in denying his motion to suppress after concluding that 
the Commonwealth did not commit a search in the constitutional 
sense when it accessed the historical GPS location data recorded 
from the defendant's GPS device without a warrant, and (ii) the 
3 
 
evidence at trial was not sufficient to support the defendant's 
convictions on the charge of breaking and entering in the 
nighttime and one of the charges of larceny over $250. 
 
For the reasons stated below, we conclude that although the 
original imposition of GPS monitoring as a condition of the 
defendant's probation was a search, it was reasonable in light 
of the defendant's extensive criminal history and willingness to 
recidivate while on probation.  We also conclude that once the 
GPS device was attached to the defendant, he did not possess a 
reasonable expectation of privacy in data targeted by police to 
determine his whereabouts at the times and locations of 
suspected criminal activity that occurred during the 
probationary period.  Accordingly, no subsequent search in the 
constitutional sense under either art. 14 or the Fourth 
Amendment occurred.  Finally, we conclude that the evidence 
introduced at trial was sufficient to support the trial judge's 
finding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant committed 
the crimes of breaking and entering in the nighttime and both 
charges of larceny over $250.  We therefore affirm the motion 
judge's denial of the motion to suppress and the defendant's 
convictions.1 
                                                 
 
1 We acknowledge the amicus briefs submitted by the 
Committee for Public Counsel Services and the American Civil 
Liberties Union of Massachusetts and by the Massachusetts 
Probation Service. 
4 
 
 
Background.  1.  Motion to suppress.  We summarize the 
facts as found by the judge who decided the motion to suppress, 
supplementing those findings with undisputed facts from the 
documentary evidence that was before the motion judge.  See 
Commonwealth v. Monroe, 472 Mass. 461, 464 (2015). 
 
In April 2012, the defendant appeared in the District Court 
for a probation violation hearing on four criminal dockets 
stemming from his prior convictions of receipt of stolen 
property and restraining order violations.  The probation 
surrender was based on new charges that included breaking and 
entering and larceny from a building.  After stipulating to the 
probation violation, the defendant asked for an extension of his 
probation subject to the added condition that he wear a GPS 
device on his ankle.  The hearing judge accepted the request and 
ordered an extension of the defendant's probation for an 
additional six months with the added condition of GPS 
monitoring. 
 
Between May and September 2012, while the defendant was on 
probation and subject to GPS monitoring, several break-ins 
occurred at homes in Hanson, Marshfield, and Pembroke.  
Approximately one year after these break-ins, in September 2013, 
the defendant was arrested near the scene of a separate break-in 
in Randolph.  Randolph police became aware that the defendant 
had at one time been outfitted with a GPS device.  Randolph 
5 
 
police then contacted a Marshfield police detective and 
suggested that she contact the probation department to review 
the defendant's historical GPS location data records during the 
approximate times of the unsolved break-ins.  Marshfield police 
and probation officers thereafter accessed the defendant's 
historical GPS location data records and cross-referenced his 
location with the times and locations of the break-ins.  They 
discovered that the defendant was at or near the scene of each 
break-in at approximately the same time that each home was 
broken into.  The defendant was then indicted and charged with 
multiple counts of breaking and entering and larceny. 
 
Before trial, the defendant moved to suppress the 
historical GPS location data, arguing that the Commonwealth's 
act of accessing and reviewing this data without a warrant was 
an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment and 
art. 14.  The motion judge concluded that the Commonwealth's 
conduct did not amount to a search in the constitutional sense 
under either the Fourth Amendment or art. 14 and denied the 
defendant's motion.  The case then moved to trial. 
 
2.  The defendant's trial.  One of the break-ins for which 
the defendant was charged and convicted occurred at a home in 
Marshfield on or about September 1, 2012.  The defendant was 
convicted of breaking and entering the home in the nighttime and 
of larceny over $250.  The defendant now appeals, arguing that 
6 
 
there was not sufficient evidence to support the two convictions 
related to this break-in.  We recite the facts the trial judge 
could have found with respect to these charges in the light most 
favorable to the Commonwealth, reserving other details for 
discussion when relevant to the issues raised.  Commonwealth v. 
Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 676-677 (1979). 
 
From August 31, 2012, to September 3, 2012, the homeowners 
left their home to visit friends in New Hampshire.  On September 
3, 2012, the homeowners returned home; discovering broken glass 
spread over the floor of their garage, they called local police.  
They soon discovered that several pieces of jewelry, 
approximately $400 in cash, and other sentimental items were 
missing from their home. 
 
During the August 31 to September 3 time frame, the 
defendant's ankle was affixed with a GPS device as a condition 
of probation.2  Evidence elicited at trial showed that while 
wearing a GPS device, a probationer's location is recorded and 
                                                 
 
2 The defendant was regularly supervised by his probation 
officer throughout his probationary period.  The probation 
officer testified that there were no indications that the global 
positioning system (GPS) monitoring device had been tampered 
with or was otherwise malfunctioning during the probationary 
period.  He further testified that in his experience, he had 
never encountered an issue where a probationer's GPS device 
erroneously recorded his or her location such that the probation 
service's electronic monitoring program system showed that the 
probationer was in a location that he or she had not actually 
been. 
7 
 
stored by the device once every minute.  This recorded location 
data is then transmitted to the probation service's electronic 
monitoring program (ELMO) system once every hour.  Once the 
location data is uploaded to the ELMO system, it can be accessed 
by probation officers and displayed on electronically generated 
maps to pinpoint the probationer's location on a minute-by-
minute basis.  If the probationer is stationary or moving slowly 
when his or her location is recorded by the GPS device, a green 
dot will appear on the map.  Because the probationer's location 
is recorded every minute, if a probationer remains stationary 
for more than a few minutes, a cluster of green dots will appear 
on the map.  If the probationer is in motion when his or her 
location is recorded by the device, however, a green arrow will 
appear on the map to indicate the speed and direction of the 
probationer's movement. 
 
The defendant's GPS device transmitted location data to the 
ELMO system, establishing that he was in the vicinity of the 
home in question on the night of September 1, 2012, and early 
morning of September 2, 2012.  Specifically, a map generated by 
the ELMO system showed several green arrows on the street in 
front of the home, confirming that the defendant was traveling 
on that street at approximately 9:23 and 9:51 P.M. on September 
1.  The map also placed the defendant, represented by a single 
green dot, directly in front of, if not on, the property on 
8 
 
September 1.  An additional map generated by the ELMO system 
revealed that the defendant was near the home just after 
midnight on September 2, 2012, and showed a cluster of green 
dots directly on and around the home that same day. 
 
At the close of trial, the judge found the defendant guilty 
of the charges of breaking and entering that home in the 
nighttime and of larceny over $250.  The defendant moved for 
required findings of not guilty on these charges, but was 
denied.  The defendant appealed from this denial, and we granted 
his application for direct appellate review. 
 
Discussion.  1.  Motion to suppress.  On appeal, the 
defendant challenges the Commonwealth's act of accessing the 
historical GPS location data recorded from his GPS device, 
arguing that the retrieval and review of this data without a 
warrant was an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment 
and art. 14.  Ordinarily, in reviewing a ruling on a motion to 
suppress, we accept the motion judge's "subsidiary findings of 
fact absent clear error," but we "review independently the 
application of constitutional principles to the facts found" 
(citation omitted).  Commonwealth v. Mauricio, 477 Mass. 588, 
591 (2017).  However, we review any factual "findings of the 
motion judge that were based entirely on the documentary 
evidence" de novo.  Monroe, 472 Mass. at 464, quoting 
Commonwealth v. Thomas, 469 Mass. 531, 539 (2014).  Because the 
9 
 
motion judge here conducted a nonevidentiary hearing at which 
the evidence was stipulated, "we are in the same position as the 
motion judge" to assess the documentary evidence put forward by 
the parties.3  Monroe, supra, quoting Thomas, supra at 535 n.4.  
See Commonwealth v. Tremblay, 480 Mass. 645, 654-655 (2018) ("We 
now affirm the principle that an appellate court may 
independently review documentary evidence, and that lower court 
findings drawn from such evidence are not entitled to 
deference"). 
 
The Fourth Amendment and art. 14 protect individuals from 
"unreasonable searches" and "seizures."  For the protections of 
either the Fourth Amendment or art. 14 to apply, however, the 
Commonwealth's conduct must constitute a search in the 
constitutional sense.  Commonwealth v. Magri, 462 Mass. 360, 366 
(2012).  In its most traditional form, a search occurs when "the 
Government obtains information by physically intruding on a 
constitutionally protected area" (citation omitted).  Grady v. 
North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368, 1370 (2015) (per curiam).  A 
search in the constitutional sense may also occur, however, 
"when the government's conduct intrudes on a person's reasonable 
                                                 
 
3 The documentary evidence before the motion judge here 
included the factual record that was stipulated to at the 
nonevidentiary hearing, the documents attached to the motion to 
suppress, and the Commonwealth's memorandum in opposition 
thereto, which included an affidavit from the defendant and 
various court and probation records. 
10 
 
expectation of privacy."  Commonwealth v. Augustine, 467 Mass. 
230, 241 (2014), S.C., 470 Mass. 837 and 472 Mass. 448 (2015).  
See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., 
concurring).  An individual has a reasonable expectation of 
privacy (i) if the individual has "manifested a subjective 
expectation of privacy in the object of the search," and (ii) if 
"society is willing to recognize that expectation as reasonable" 
(citation omitted).  Augustine, supra at 242.  The defendant 
bears the burden of establishing that the governmental conduct 
violated his or her reasonable expectations of privacy.  
Commonwealth v. Miller, 475 Mass. 212, 219 (2016). 
 
In the instant case, we must analyze the constitutionality 
of both the initial imposition of GPS monitoring for the 
purposes of probation and the police's subsequent review of the 
historical GPS location data for investigatory purposes after 
the defendant's probationary period had expired.  For the 
reasons set forth infra, we conclude that although the initial 
imposition of the GPS monitoring for probationary purposes was a 
search in the constitutional sense under the Fourth Amendment 
and art. 14, it was a reasonable one.  We also conclude that the 
police's subsequent act of accessing and reviewing the 
historical GPS location data after the defendant's probationary 
period had expired to determine whether he was present at the 
general time and place of particularly identified crimes did not 
11 
 
constitute a search under either the Fourth Amendment or art. 
14, because the defendant had no reasonable expectation of 
privacy in this data. 
a.  The power and potential of GPS technology.  As 
explained supra, a search in the constitutional sense may occur 
"when the government's conduct intrudes on a person's reasonable 
expectation of privacy."  Augustine, 467 Mass. at 241.  This 
court and the United States Supreme Court have recognized the 
difficulty of defining expectations of privacy that are 
implicated by novel applications of new technologies.  Both 
courts have emphasized, however, that privacy rights cannot be 
left at the "mercy of advancing technology" but rather must be 
preserved and protected as new technologies are adopted and 
applied by law enforcement.  See, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 
533 U.S. 27, 35 (2001) (prohibiting law enforcement's 
warrantless use of thermal imaging device to look into home so 
as not to leave privacy rights "at the mercy of advancing 
technology"); Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 473 
(1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) (noting that courts must be 
vigilant to guard against "[s]ubtler and more far-reaching means 
of invading privacy [that] have become available to the 
government"); Augustine, supra at 250-251 (restricting law 
enforcement's use of cell site location information [CSLI] to 
track individuals due to intrusion of privacy interests).  We 
12 
 
are now tasked with addressing these concerns in the context of 
law enforcement's use of a probationer's GPS location data for 
investigatory purposes. 
 
As this court and the Supreme Court have held in recent 
years, there is no question that the government's extensive 
collection and examination of personal location data can intrude 
on an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy, at least 
for an individual who is not a probationer.  The Supreme Court 
has emphasized in the Fourth Amendment context that individuals 
have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a detailed 
comprehensive documentation of their physical movements over an 
extended period of time due to the amount of sensitive and 
private information that can be gleaned from this data.  
Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206, 2217, 2218 (2018) 
("individuals have an expectation of privacy in the whole of 
their physical movements").  The same is true under art. 14.  
See Augustine, 467 Mass. at 253; Commonwealth v. Rousseau, 465 
Mass. 372, 382 (2013).  Much less clear, however, is how such 
decisions apply to probationers who have GPS devices attached to 
them as a condition of probation. 
As is the case when an individual carries a cellular 
telephone or has a GPS device attached to his or her vehicle, a 
probationer's precise location is continuously tracked while he 
or she is wearing a GPS device as a condition of probation.  See 
13 
 
Augustine, 467 Mass. at 253; Rousseau, 465 Mass. at 382.  
Because law enforcement cannot similarly and continually track a 
probationer's location and monitor them in real time, or at 
least do so without extraordinary expense, the historical GPS 
location data gives probation officers and police "access to a 
category of information otherwise unknowable."  Carpenter, 138 
S. Ct. at 2217-2218.  See United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 
415-416 (2012) (Sotomayor, J., concurring).  See also Carpenter, 
supra at 2218 ("With just the click of a button, the Government 
can access . . . [a] deep repository of historical location 
information at practically no expense").  The nature and extent 
of this GPS location data yields a "treasure trove of very 
detailed and extensive information about the individual's 
'comings and goings'" for law enforcement.  Augustine, supra at 
251.  See Jones, supra at 415 (Sotomayor, J., concurring) ("GPS 
monitoring generates a precise, comprehensive record of a 
person's public movements . . .").  This is particularly true 
where the tracking takes place over a long period of time.  
Augustine, supra at 253 ("when . . . tracking takes place over 
extended periods of time . . . the cumulative nature of the 
information collected implicates a privacy interest on the part 
of the individual who is the target of the tracking"). 
In cases of an extended probationary period, the 
Commonwealth is able to collect and archive an enormous volume 
14 
 
of location data.4  With this location data at its disposal, the 
Commonwealth could conceivably reconstruct a complete mapping of 
a probationer's movements throughout the probationary period if 
it chose to do so.  See Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2217.  In so 
doing, the Commonwealth would be able to discover an extensive 
amount of sensitive and private information about a 
probationer's life.  See id.; Augustine, 467 Mass. at 248-249.  
As the Supreme Court recently explained in Carpenter, supra at 
2217, in the context of CSLI, location records "hold for many 
Americans the privacies of life" and "provide[] an intimate 
window into a person's life, revealing not only his [or her] 
particular movements, but through them his [or her] familial, 
political, professional, religious, and sexual associations" 
(quotations and citations omitted). 
With this understanding of the power and the potential of 
this technology, we turn to the particular legal issues 
presented by the attachment of a GPS device to a probationer 
with a lengthy criminal history as a condition of probation, and 
to the subsequent act of accessing and reviewing this location 
data by the police after the expiration of his or her 
probationary period. 
                                                 
 
4 In the defendant's case, the probationary period was six 
months. 
15 
 
b.  Imposition of GPS monitoring as a condition of 
probation.  In 2015, in Grady, the United States Supreme Court 
held that a search under the Fourth Amendment occurs when the 
government "attaches a device to a person's body, without 
consent, for the purpose of tracking that individual's 
movements."  Grady, 135 S. Ct. at 1370.  There, the Court 
considered the constitutionality of a North Carolina statute 
that required recidivist sex offenders to be subjected to GPS 
monitoring.  Id. at 1369.  After determining that the GPS 
monitoring was "plainly designed to obtain information," and did 
so by "physically intruding on a subject's body," the Court 
concluded that it was a search under the Fourth Amendment.  Id. 
at 1371.  Imposing GPS monitoring as a condition of probation is 
also a search in the constitutional sense under art. 14.  
Commonwealth v. Feliz, 481 Mass.   ,    (2019).  Accordingly, 
the Commonwealth conducted a search of the defendant when the 
GPS monitoring condition was imposed on the defendant in this 
case.5  See Grady, supra at 1371; Feliz, supra. 
                                                 
 
5 Neither the defendant nor the Commonwealth addresses 
whether the initial imposition of the GPS monitoring as a 
condition of probation was a search in the constitutional sense 
on appeal.  As this initial search is interconnected with the 
subsequent accessing of the data by the police, as both a 
practical and a legal matter, we must analyze both.  The record 
on appeal is sufficient to allow us to exercise our discretion 
to address this issue.  Mass. R. A. P. 16 (a) (9) (A), as 
appearing in 481 Mass. 1628 (2019).  See Canter v. Commissioner 
of Pub. Welfare, 423 Mass. 425, 432 (1996). 
16 
 
 
As the Grady Court also explained, such a search is 
constitutional only if it was reasonable.  Grady, 135 S. Ct. at 
1371.  See Feliz, 481 Mass. at     ; Commonwealth v. Entwistle, 
463 Mass. 205, 213 (2012), cert. denied, 568 U.S. 1129 (2013) 
("the ultimate touchstone of . . . art. 14 is reasonableness" 
[quotation and citation omitted]).  Article 14 requires an 
"individualized determination" of the reasonableness of 
subjecting a defendant to GPS monitoring as a condition of 
probation.  Feliz, supra at     .  In making this determination, 
courts must balance "the Commonwealth's need to impose GPS 
monitoring against the privacy invasion occasioned by such 
monitoring."  Feliz, supra at     .  See Grady, supra.  Courts 
may consider a "constellation of factors," including, among 
others, the intrusiveness of the search; the defendant's 
particular circumstances, such as his or her criminal 
convictions, past probation violations, or risk of recidivism; 
and the probationary purposes, if any, for which the monitoring 
was imposed.  Feliz, supra at     (analyzing goals of probation 
and defendant's likelihood to recidivate in balancing test).  
See Grady, supra (noting that reasonableness depends on "the 
totality of the circumstances").  No single factor, however, is 
dispositive in every case.  Feliz, supra at    . 
 
Prior to the imposition of GPS monitoring as a condition of 
his probation, the defendant in this case was on probation for 
17 
 
several convictions, including receiving stolen property and 
restraining order violations.  The defendant thereafter violated 
his probation when he was charged with breaking and entering in 
the nighttime and larceny from a building.  At the probation 
violation hearing, the defendant stipulated to the violations 
and requested that he be subject to GPS monitoring in an effort 
to avoid incarceration.  The judge extended his probation for 
six months and ordered the GPS monitoring.  At the hearing, the 
judge was clearly concerned about the defendant's likelihood to 
recidivate in the future.  Specifically, the judge ordered the 
defendant to be held pending the installation of the GPS device 
to his ankle because the judge was "not comfortable" releasing 
the defendant to the public until it was determined when he 
could be "hooked up" with the GPS device and tracked. 
 
In light of the defendant's criminal convictions, and past 
probation violations, the record makes clear that GPS monitoring 
was imposed on the defendant for the legitimate probationary 
purposes that this court and the Supreme Court have previously 
identified.  See United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 120-121 
(2001); Feliz, 481 Mass. at     ; Commonwealth v. Lapointe, 435 
Mass. 455, 459 (2001).  These include deterring the probationer 
from engaging in criminal activity and detecting such criminal 
activity if it occurs.  See Knights, supra; Lapointe, supra; 
Commonwealth v. Power, 420 Mass. 410, 415 (1995), cert. denied, 
18 
 
516 U.S. 1042 (1996).  Although we have recognized that the 
imposition of GPS monitoring as a condition of probation 
significantly burdens a probationer's liberty, Feliz, supra 
at    , we conclude that the intrusiveness of the GPS monitoring 
condition imposed on the defendant-probationer's already 
diminished privacy expectations6 was outweighed by the 
governmental interests served by such monitoring, including but 
not limited to the deterrence and detection of criminal activity 
during the probationary period.  Accordingly, the defendant's 
particular circumstances rendered the imposition of GPS 
monitoring as a condition of his probation for six months 
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and art. 14.  Cf. Belleau 
v. Wall, 811 F.3d 929, 936-937 (7th Cir. 2016) (mandatory 
imposition of GPS monitoring for probationer pursuant to statute 
reasonable where defendant was recidivist sex offender).  
Contrast Feliz, supra at     (GPS monitoring condition 
unreasonable in defendant's particular circumstances where, 
among other factors, Commonwealth presented insufficient 
evidence that defendant posed threat of "reoffending, or 
otherwise of violating the terms of his probation"). 
                                                 
 
6 Both this court and the United States Supreme Court have 
previously recognized that a probationer has a diminished 
expectation of privacy.  See United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 
112, 119 (2001); Commonwealth v. Moore, 473 Mass. 481, 485 
(2016).  See also part 2.c.ii, infra (discussing diminished 
expectations of privacy held by probationers). 
19 
 
 
c.  Law enforcement's subsequent access to historical GPS 
location data.  Having found the condition of probation 
subjecting the defendant to GPS monitoring for six months to be 
a reasonable search, we next address the constitutionality of 
the Commonwealth's subsequent act of accessing the historical 
GPS location data recorded from the defendant's GPS device.  The 
Commonwealth's retrieval and review of this historical data 
requires a separate constitutional inquiry under the Fourth 
Amendment and art. 14 because it was conducted by the police, 
not the probation service, for investigatory, rather than 
probationary, reasons.  It was also conducted after the 
defendant's probationary period had ended. 
This type of governmental conduct is distinct from the 
periodic review of a probationer's GPS location by probation 
officials.  The decision to review the GPS location data was 
not, for example, the result of the defendant entering an 
exclusionary zone, which would trigger an alert to a probation 
official.  Nor was this a review of the defendant's location by 
a probation official to ensure compliance with any of the 
defendant's other conditions of probation.  Rather, the review 
here was undertaken on the basis of law enforcement's hunch that 
the defendant may have been responsible for various unsolved 
housebreaks that took place in the preceding months.  
Accordingly, it requires a separate constitutional analysis. 
20 
 
i.  Subjective expectation of privacy.  To claim a 
reasonable expectation of privacy, the defendant must first 
"manifest[] a subjective expectation of privacy in the object of 
the search" (citation omitted).  Augustine, 467 Mass. at 242.  
The defendant here requested and agreed to the GPS monitoring as 
a condition of his probation.  He also averred in his affidavit 
in support of his motion to suppress that he was told that "the 
purpose of the GPS bracelet was to ensure that [he] did not 
enter any exclusionary zones."7  At minimum, the defendant knew 
that he was subject to GPS monitoring and that his location 
could be broadcast to probation officials under certain 
circumstances.8 
                                                 
 
7 As previously explained, the defendant was subjected to 
GPS monitoring following a probation violation hearing on four 
criminal dockets, including two restraining order violations.  
It is not clear from the record, however, that the defendant's 
probationary conditions, at least in this case, included any 
exclusionary zones.  Indeed, the probation violation hearing and 
the order of probation conditions make no mention of any 
exclusionary zones, other than a handwritten notation on the 
order stating "No abuse of J."  The section of the order dealing 
with "stay away" provisions was left blank.  It does appear, 
however, that the defendant was at one point subjected to an 
exclusionary zone for a separate probationary term.  See 
Commonwealth v. Johnson, 91 Mass. App. Ct. 296, 298 (2017). 
 
8 We note, however, that the defendant's probation records 
fail to detail the extent of the GPS monitoring or explain the 
purposes for which the GPS location data would be recorded, 
retained, and used by law enforcement, including after his 
probationary period.  Rather, these probation records merely 
note that the defendant would be subjected to GPS monitoring 
generally.  For instance, the order of probation conditions, 
which was signed by the defendant, simply includes the 
21 
 
What the defendant subjectively understood his expectation 
of privacy to be while wearing the GPS device in this case is 
not perfectly clear.  Whether he could plausibly argue that he 
did not understand that the purpose of the GPS device was to 
deter and detect his uninvited presence in other people's homes 
is not worth belaboring, however, as we conclude that he could 
have no objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the 
historical GPS location data that was accessed and used by the 
Commonwealth here. 
ii.  Objective expectation of privacy.  Even assuming that 
the defendant had a subjective expectation of privacy, the 
expectation must be one that society is willing to recognize as 
reasonable for the protections of the Fourth Amendment and art. 
14 to apply.  Augustine, 467 Mass. at 242.  The defendant's 
status as a probationer is "salient" to this evaluation.  
Commonwealth v. Moore, 473 Mass. 481, 485 (2016).  See Knights, 
534 U.S. at 119.  By virtue of being on probation, a probationer 
is subject to regular government supervision and thus can 
neither enjoy the same amount of liberty nor reasonably expect 
the same amount of privacy as an ordinary citizen.  See Knights, 
supra.  Accordingly, this court and the Supreme Court have 
recognized that, although probationers do not give up all 
                                                 
sentencing judge's handwritten notation, "GPS 6 Mo[nths]," as a 
special condition of probation. 
22 
 
expectations of privacy while on probation, their expectations 
are significantly diminished.  See id.; Moore, supra.   
The defendant here was of course not just on probation; he 
was on probation with the added condition of GPS monitoring 
because he had stipulated to violating his original sentence of 
probation after he was charged with breaking and entering and 
larceny while on probation.  The defendant was thus on notice 
that GPS monitoring was imposed as a result of the defendant's 
criminal activity while on probation and the judge's concern 
over the defendant's demonstrated risk of recidivism.  Any such 
defendant-probationer would therefore objectively understand 
that his or her person and movements were being recorded by the 
GPS device and monitored by the Commonwealth to ensure 
compliance with probationary conditions and to deter him or her 
from committing future crimes while wearing the GPS device.  
This understanding further diminished any objective expectation 
of privacy he might have had in his whereabouts, at least during 
the probationary period.  Knights, 534 U.S. at 119-120 (privacy 
expectations diminished where probationer aware of condition of 
probation subjecting him to government monitoring).  As the 
dissent appropriately recognizes, the defendant's subsequent 
decision to break and enter peoples' homes while wearing the GPS 
device in these circumstances took tremendous "chutzpah."  Post 
at    . 
23 
 
The Legislature has also provided for police access to 
probation information in G. L. c. 276, § 90, which states, in 
pertinent part, that a probation officer's records may "at all 
times be inspected by police officials of the towns of the 
commonwealth."  G. L. c. 276, § 90.  The statute thus provides 
an express, and apparently unlimited, authorization for law 
enforcement to review probation records, including the 
historical GPS location data recorded from a probationer's GPS 
device.  See id.  See also G. L. c. 276, § 100.  The motion 
judge principally relied on this statute in reaching his 
conclusion that the defendant did not have an objectively 
reasonable expectation of privacy in the GPS location data 
recorded from the GPS device.  The Commonwealth similarly argues 
that because the Legislature has authorized the police to 
inspect a probationer's records, the probationer has no 
objective expectation of privacy in any information contained 
therein.  Although the statute informs our analysis of the 
objective expectation of privacy probationers may have in the 
GPS location data recorded from their GPS devices, it does not 
end our inquiry.  We must, as always, provide an independent 
review of the constitutionality of the governmental conduct that 
is authorized by statute.  Commonwealth v. Blood, 400 Mass. 61, 
75 (1987) ("the historic fact of the Legislature's choice does 
24 
 
not relieve us of our constitutional obligation to review the 
validity of a search . . . in light of art. 14").9 
The defendant contends that the Commonwealth's retrieval 
and review of the historical GPS location data intruded on his 
objective expectation of privacy because the Commonwealth 
accessed a broad and extensive accumulation of location data 
that spanned a period of several months.  Analogizing his 
circumstances to those present in recent cases involving 
governmental use of location records outside the probation 
context, such as CSLI, the defendant argues that in accessing 
the GPS location data recorded from his GPS device, the 
Commonwealth was exposed to an enormous amount of sensitive 
information that could provide an "intimate window" into his 
                                                 
 
9 General Laws c. 276, § 90, was enacted in 1880 and was 
last amended in 1938.  G. L. c. 276, § 90, as amended through 
St. 1938, c. 174, § 3.  See St. 1880, c. 129, §§ 1, 5.  The 
state of technology at the time meant that the enacting 
Legislature had no opportunity to evaluate the privacy interests 
that may now be implicated by the recording and storing of long-
term historical GPS location data.  See Commonwealth v. 
Augustine, 467 Mass. 230, 245 (2014), S.C., 472 Mass. 448 (2015) 
("the digital age has altered dramatically the societal 
landscape").  See also United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 415 
(2012) (Sotomayor, J., concurring) ("the same technological 
advances that have made possible [law enforcement's] 
nontrespassory surveillance techniques will . . . shap[e] the 
evolution of societal privacy expectations").  As stated supra, 
we must reconsider older statutes in light of new technologies 
to ensure that privacy rights are not left at "the mercy of 
advancing technology."  Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 35 
(2001).  See Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 473 (1928) 
(Brandeis, J., dissenting); Augustine, supra at 250-251. 
25 
 
life.  See Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2217-2218.  We recognize and 
respect the significant privacy concerns raised by the 
continuous recording, collection, and accumulation of location 
data described by the defendant.  See id.; Augustine, 467 Mass. 
at 251-253.  That being said, our task is to determine whether 
an individual's expectation of privacy is one that society is 
willing to recognize as reasonable.  Augustine, supra at 242.  
There is no question that the reasonableness of any expectations 
of privacy held by a probationer knowingly subject to GPS 
monitoring as a condition of probation is far different from the 
reasonableness of the expectations of privacy held by 
individuals who are surreptitiously tracked by law enforcement.10 
As explained supra, the defendant was subjected to GPS 
monitoring after he stipulated to having been charged with 
engaging in criminal activity while serving his original 
probation sentence.  Under these circumstances, a probationer 
subject to GPS monitoring as a condition of probation would 
certainly objectively understand that his or her location would 
be recorded and monitored to determine compliance with the 
conditions of probation, including whether he or she had engaged 
in additional criminal activity, to deter the commission of such 
offenses, and that police would have access to this location 
                                                 
 
10 The dissent minimizes this important distinction.  Post 
at    . 
26 
 
information for that purpose.11  General Laws c. 276, § 90, which 
serves the legitimate, even compelling, governmental purpose of 
detecting and determining whether a probationer engaged in 
criminal activity during the probationary period, confirms that 
objective understanding by expressly providing for police access 
to this data.  This governmental interest in detecting and 
determining whether a probationer had engaged in criminal 
activity during his probationary period does not disappear once 
the probationary period ends.  Indeed, criminal activity that 
occurred during the probationary period is of particular concern 
to the Commonwealth, as it reflects the recidivist nature of the 
probationer.  This is true regardless of whether the criminal 
activity is detected during or after the probationary period.  
Accordingly, as opposed to nonprobationers who have their GPS, 
CSLI, or other precise location information recorded and 
reviewed by law enforcement without their knowledge, the 
defendant could not reasonably expect that his whereabouts while 
subject to GPS monitoring, particularly his whereabouts at the 
time and place of criminal activity, would remain private from 
                                                 
 
11 As explained supra, the dissent appears to acknowledge 
this point to some extent, characterizing the defendant's 
willingness to break into homes while wearing a GPS monitoring 
device as a condition of probation as a "jaw-dropping act of 
audacity."  Post at    . 
27 
 
government eyes.12  The defendant therefore could have no 
reasonable expectation of privacy in the data accessed by the 
police here to target criminal activity during the probationary 
period, even where the data was accessed after the probationary 
period ended.13 
Moreover, the Commonwealth's conduct did not amount to the 
same type of conduct we have identified in other contexts as 
intruding on an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy 
                                                 
 
12 We do not, as the dissent argues, suggest that a 
defendant "forfeits his [or her] expectation of privacy" upon 
notice of government surveillance.  Post at note 4.  Although 
notice is a relevant consideration, see Matter of a Grand Jury 
Subpoena, 454 Mass. 685, 689 (2009), we are in no way saying 
that it is dispositive.  Whether notice of surveillance is given 
or not, the controlling question remains whether the expectation 
of privacy is one that society would call reasonable.  See 
Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 525 n.7 (1984).  Here, as 
explained supra, we conclude that it is not. 
 
 
13 The dissent argues that whatever diminished expectation 
of privacy the defendant had in the GPS data during probation 
"would have changed the day he completed his sentence."  Post 
at    .  On that day, according to the dissent, he was not only 
no longer on probation, but he recovered an undiminished right 
to privacy in this data retroactively, as if he had never been 
on probation.  This is incorrect.  As explained supra, the 
principal purposes of the original imposition of GPS monitoring 
as a condition of probation are to rehabilitate the defendant, 
deter and detect criminal activity, and protect the public.  
Society would not consider it reasonable for a probationer to 
expect that evidence that he or she committed crimes during the 
probationary period could not be shared with law enforcement, 
even after the probationary period had ended, to determine 
whether he or she did in fact commit the crimes.  Cf. Matter of 
a Grand Jury Subpoena, 454 Mass. at 689 n.6 (prison officials 
permitted to share recordings of inmate telephone calls with law 
enforcement). 
28 
 
in his or her whereabouts.  See Augustine, 467 Mass. at 253 
(CSLI); Rousseau, 465 Mass. at 382 (GPS tracking of motor 
vehicle).  The record does not describe law enforcement engaged 
in an effort to map out and analyze all of the defendant's 
movements over the six-month probationary period.  Nor does the 
Commonwealth appear to have, as the defendant argues on appeal, 
"rummaged through five months' worth of . . . locational data to 
find and trace every move [the defendant] made" during his 
probationary period.  Rather, as the defendant recognized in his 
motion to suppress, the Commonwealth reviewed the defendant's 
historical GPS location data to determine whether he was present 
at the general times and locations when various unsolved break-
ins may have occurred.14  This is corroborated by the motion to 
                                                 
14 The dissent disputes this.  Post at    .  Citing "the 
uncontroverted statements in the defendant's memorandum in 
support of his motion to suppress," the dissent argues that the 
defendant's minute-by-minute movements over a period of months 
were reviewed by law enforcement.  Id. at    .  This, the 
dissent argues, surely intruded on the defendant's reasonable 
expectation of privacy.  Although the motion judge's findings of 
fact on this issue do not make this point clear, the dissent 
overstates the record in this case.  Indeed, by the defendant's 
very own uncontroverted admission in his motion to suppress, the 
Commonwealth examined the defendant's location "at certain times 
[on] certain days" to determine if he was at the location of 
known criminal activity.  Recognizing that the record does not 
support its position, the dissent looks to information outside 
of the record.  Specifically, the dissent cites to an exhibit 
entered in evidence at trial and a summary of the trial 
testimony of a probation official of her conduct in a separate 
case as support for an inference that law enforcement intruded 
upon a reasonable expectation of privacy.  This information, 
29 
 
suppress record, which appears to show that the GPS location 
data actually accessed and reviewed by the Commonwealth was 
targeted to the task at hand.  The record before the motion 
judge, and provided to us on appeal, thus describes law 
enforcement accessing and analyzing the defendant's GPS location 
data with respect to the general times and locations of 
suspected criminal activity, particularly unsolved break-ins in 
                                                 
however, was not before the motion judge when he considered the 
defendant's motion to suppress. 
 
It is well established that in reviewing a denial of a 
motion to suppress, an appellate court may not consider evidence 
outside the factual record that was put before the motion judge.  
See Commonwealth v. Rivera, 441 Mass. 358, 367 (2004) ("Evidence 
adduced at trial but not before the motion judge . . . cannot be 
determinative of the propriety of the motion judge's decision" 
[citation omitted]); Commonwealth v. Taylor, 383 Mass. 272, 280 
n.9 (1981) ("we must judge the motion to suppress solely on the 
record made at the suppression hearing"); Commonwealth v. 
Wojcik, 358 Mass. 623, 631 (1971) ("Statements in a brief or 
oral argument cannot be used as a means of placing before this 
court any facts which are not included in the record on 
appeal").  Accordingly, we may not properly consider this 
information on appeal.  Even had it been included in the record, 
much of the evidence cited by the dissent was not provided to us 
on appeal.  See Chokel v. Genzyme Corp., 449 Mass. 272, 279 
(2007) ("It is [the appellant's] obligation to include in the 
record appendix any documents on which he [or she] 
relies . . . .  When a party fails to include a document in the 
record appendix, an appellate court is not required to look 
beyond that appendix to consider the missing document").  The 
defendant had the burden of proving that the Commonwealth's 
conduct violated a reasonable expectation of privacy.  
Commonwealth v. Miller, 475 Mass. 212, 219 (2016).  The 
defendant here failed to meet this burden with the record as it 
existed before the motion judge.  An appellate court cannot 
relitigate a motion to suppress on his behalf with materials 
outside the record. 
30 
 
Hanson, Marshfield, and Pembroke.  Simply comparing subsets of 
the defendant's GPS location data recorded while he was on 
probation to the general times and places of suspected criminal 
activity during the probationary period is not a search in the 
constitutional sense.  At least in other contexts, society has 
not recognized a probationer's purported expectation of privacy 
in information that identifies his or her presence at the scene 
of a crime as a reasonable one.  Cf. Commonwealth v. Arzola, 470 
Mass. 809, 816, 820 (2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 792 (2016) 
(deoxyribonucleic acid [DNA] analysis of bloodstain found on 
defendant's shirt did not amount to search because Commonwealth 
performed narrow analysis that avoided "reveal[ing] more 
information than the identity of the source"); Boroian v. 
Mueller, 616 F.3d 60, 67-68 (1st Cir. 2010) (retention and 
subsequent use of DNA profiles only to match against other 
profiles in criminal database after probationary period expired 
did not "violate an expectation of privacy that society is 
prepared to recognize as reasonable"). 
We also understand that even a targeted review of GPS data 
directed at times and locations of suspected criminal activity 
during a probationary period will likely expose the police to 
some other information concerning the defendant's whereabouts 
during the relevant time periods.  Cf. Knights, 534 U.S. at 119-
121 (discussing diminished expectations of privacy held by 
31 
 
probationers).  This is, however, quite different from either 
mapping out and reviewing all of the defendant's movements  
while on probation or rummaging through the defendant's 
historical GPS location data indiscriminately.  So long as the 
review is targeted at identifying the defendant's presence at 
the time and location of particular criminal activity during the 
probationary period, it is not a search, as such review is 
consistent with a probationer's limited expectations of privacy.  
See id.  Police action necessary to deter and detect criminal 
activity during the probationary period is reasonably expected.  
See G. L. c. 276, § 90. 
 
In sum, this case is not, as the defendant argues, one in 
which the police, after his probation had expired, mapped out 
months of the defendant's historical GPS location data in a 
coordinated effort to recreate a full mosaic of his personal 
life, over an extended and unnecessary period of time, that 
would have revealed, in the words of the United States Supreme 
Court, "not only his particular movements, but through them his 
[or her] familial, political, professional, religious, and 
sexual associations" (quotation and citation omitted).  
Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2217.  Nor it is a case of 
indiscriminate rummaging through six months of data.  Those 
circumstances might raise different, more difficult 
constitutional questions about objective expectations of 
32 
 
privacy, even for a probationer subjected to GPS monitoring.  We 
need not, and do not, decide that question today.  According to 
the record before the motion judge, the police here instead 
targeted their analysis to whether the defendant -- a 
probationer with significantly diminished expectations of 
privacy in his whereabouts while on probation -- was present at 
the general times and locations of crimes committed during his 
probationary period.  Such a review of the probationer's GPS 
location data, even if it may have revealed the presence of some 
lawful activities, did not intrude on any privacy expectations 
that society would be willing to recognize as reasonable.  
Accordingly, on the record put before the motion judge, the 
defendant has failed to make a showing that the Commonwealth 
intruded on any reasonable expectation of privacy he might have 
had in this data once the GPS was imposed as a condition of 
probation.  The Commonwealth therefore did not commit a search 
in the constitutional sense under the Fourth Amendment or art. 
14 when the police accessed this data after his probationary 
period expired. 
 
2.  Sufficiency of the evidence.  The defendant also argues 
that the trial judge erred in denying his motion for required 
findings of not guilty on the counts of breaking and entering in 
the nighttime and larceny over $250 that arose from the break-in 
in Marshfield on or about September 1, 2012.  Specifically, the 
33 
 
defendant argues that the GPS location data introduced at trial 
only placed him in the vicinity of, but not inside, the home in 
question on September 1, 2012.  Accordingly, he argues, the 
evidence put forth at trial was speculative and therefore not 
sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he ever broke 
into and entered the home.  We disagree. 
 
In reviewing the denial of a motion for a required finding 
of not guilty, we must determine whether the evidence, when 
"viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth and 
drawing all inferences in favor of the Commonwealth, would 
permit a rational [trier of fact] to find each essential element 
of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt."  Commonwealth v. Merry, 
453 Mass. 653, 660 (2009), citing Latimore, 378 Mass. at 676–
677.  "While the inferences drawn must be reasonable, they need 
not be necessary or inescapable" (quotation and citation 
omitted).  Merry, supra at 661.  The evidence would not be 
sufficient to convict the defendant of a charged crime, however, 
"if it requires piling inference upon inference, or requires 
conjecture and speculation" (quotations and citation omitted).  
Id. 
 
General Laws c. 266, § 16, provides:  "Whoever, in the 
night time, breaks and enters a building . . . with intent to 
commit a felony . . . shall be punished by imprisonment in the 
state prison for not more than twenty years or in a jail or 
34 
 
house of correction for not more than two and one-half years."  
The element of "break[ing]" is not defined by the statute, but 
has "long been understood to include all actions violating the 
common security of a dwelling," including "obvious intrusions 
into locked areas," "lifting a latch and opening the door," 
"shoving up a window," and moving "to a material degree 
something that barred the way" (quotations and citations 
omitted).  Commonwealth v. Burke, 392 Mass. 688, 689–690 (1984).  
The element of "enter[ing]" is similarly not defined by the 
statute, but has traditionally been interpreted as constituting 
"any intrusion into a protected enclosure by any part of a 
defendant's body."  Commonwealth v. Stokes, 440 Mass. 741, 748 
(2004), quoting Burke, supra at 690. 
 
Here, the evidence at trial showed that the homeowners were 
away from their home from August 31 to September 3, 2012.  At no 
time did the homeowners grant the defendant permission to enter 
their home.  When they returned home, they discovered that 
broken glass was spread on the floor of their garage.  They 
later discovered that cash, jewelry, and sentimental items were 
missing from their home.  The value of the missing items 
exceeded $250. 
 
At the time of the break-in, the defendant had been wearing 
a GPS device as a condition of probation.  The device recorded 
the defendant's location every minute while he was wearing it 
35 
 
and uploaded this data to the ELMO system once every hour.  
There was no evidence that the defendant's GPS device was 
inaccurate or had been malfunctioning in any way during his six-
month probationary period.  The defendant's GPS device 
transferred location data to the ELMO system that placed the 
defendant in and around the home on the evening of September 1 
and the very early morning of September 2. 
 
At trial, the Commonwealth introduced this evidence through 
a collection of screenshots of maps that were electronically 
generated by the ELMO system.15  In these maps, the defendant's 
location was represented by either a green dot or a green arrow, 
depending on the defendant's speed of movement at the time his 
location was recorded by his GPS device.  One of these maps 
clearly showed that as of approximately 9:23 and 9:51 P.M. on 
the night of September 1, the defendant was traveling on the 
street on which the home is located.  Another map showed that 
the defendant was stationary on the street directly in front of, 
if not on, the property on September 1.  A second set of maps 
subsequently confirmed that the defendant was steps away from 
the property at 12:03 A.M. on September 2.  These maps also 
                                                 
 
15 The defendant did not object to the admissibility of 
these records or to the purpose for which they were being 
offered by the Commonwealth.  The defendant did, however, object 
to their introduction to preserve his appeal from the denial of 
his motion to suppress them. 
36 
 
showed several green dots located around, and indeed directly 
on, the home at various times on September 2. 
 
The defendant argues that this evidence was not sufficient 
under Latimore to convict him of breaking and entering because 
the GPS location data could not definitively prove that he ever 
entered the home.  Rather, the defendant argues, these maps 
merely place him "in the general vicinity of [the home], but not 
on the property itself," and that accordingly, the 
Commonwealth's evidence only proved that he had the "opportunity 
to commit the charged crime[s]."  The defendant overlooks the 
evidence of his location on the early morning of September 2 
that was properly admitted at trial.  This evidence placed the 
defendant directly on the property for several minutes.  With 
all of this evidence in hand, any rational trier of fact could 
have reasonably inferred that the defendant broke and entered 
the home on or about September 1 and committed larceny over 
$250.  Accordingly, we conclude that there was sufficient 
evidence, when "viewed in the light most favorable to the 
Commonwealth" and taken together with the reasonable inferences 
drawn therefrom, to support the trial judge's conclusions that 
the defendant broke and entered the home on or about September 1 
with the intent to commit a felony and stole items valued in 
excess of $250.  Merry, 453 Mass. at 660.  We therefore affirm 
the defendant's convictions. 
37 
 
 
Conclusion.  For these reasons, we affirm the denial of the 
defendant's motion to suppress and the defendant's convictions 
of breaking and entering in the nighttime under G. L. c. 266, 
§ 16, and larceny over $250 under G. L. c. 266, § 30. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered. 
 
 
 
LENK, J. (dissenting).  As is hardly unusual with motions 
to suppress, the police hunch here proved to be quite right:  
the defendant was indeed involved in a series of unsolved 
breaking and entering cases.  From April to September 2012, the 
defendant wore a global positioning system (GPS) device; it had 
been attached to his ankle at his request, in order that he 
remain on probation after he acknowledged that he had violated 
his terms of probation.  While wearing the device, he 
nonetheless committed a series of break-ins in Hanson, 
Mansfield, and Pembroke.  The break-ins went undetected at the 
time, and the defendant was released from probation.  
Approximately ten months later, in July 2013, the defendant 
again found himself subject to GPS monitoring, this time as a 
condition of pretrial release in connection with charges 
stemming from an incident of domestic violence in a different 
county.  See Commonwealth v. Johnson, 91 Mass. App. Ct. 296, 297 
(2017).1  In yet another jaw-dropping act of audacity, while 
wearing the second GPS device, he committed a breaking and 
entering in the West Roxbury section of Boston in August 2013.  
                                                 
 
1 In Commonwealth v. Johnson, 91 Mass. App. Ct. 296 (2017), 
this same defendant appealed from the denial of his motion to 
suppress a search of his 2013 global positioning system (GPS) 
data during the investigation of the 2013 break-in for which he 
had been arrested.  The case now before the court concerns a 
different search, conducted around the same time, of the 
defendant's 2012 GPS records that were collected during a period 
of probationary supervision. 
2 
 
 
In September 2013, the defendant was arrested in Randolph near 
the scene of a separate break-in. 
 
It is as a result of this arrest, approximately one year 
after the termination of the defendant's probation, that 
Marshfield police sought to determine whether he had been 
involved in ten unsolved break-ins that occurred between May and 
September 2012.  To that end, the government began its 
warrantless search of the defendant's year old GPS data 
collected during his 2012 probationary period.  It is this 
search, acknowledged by the court to have been based on no more 
than a police hunch, that the defendant urges be suppressed.  
See ante at     .  While his acts are chutzpah on stilts, I am 
constrained to agree with the defendant:  our jurisprudence 
requires suppression.  Consistent with our case law, the 
government needed a warrant before conducting its search of 
historical GPS records at a time when the defendant was not a 
probationer. 
 
I do not disagree with the court that there is sufficient 
evidence to support the defendant's convictions.  Nor do I 
disagree that the Commonwealth is entitled to accumulate 
location records of individuals whose GPS coordinates are 
monitored by the probation department, and that it may maintain 
a copy of those records even after termination of the 
individual's probationary supervision.  As evidenced here, such 
3 
 
 
records later may prove useful.  But the court's decision today 
has an impact on not only this defendant but, at a minimum, all 
individuals who have ever worn a GPS device while on probation. 
 
Where my reasoning diverges from that of my colleagues is 
with respect to the level of judicial oversight required 
whenever the Commonwealth seeks to search the location history 
of an individual who once was -- but, at the time of the search, 
is not -- a probationer.2  The court today determines that no 
judicial oversight of any kind is necessary.  Because, in my 
view, art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and the 
                                                 
 
2 At the time police examined his GPS data, in the fall of 
2013, the defendant had been arrested in connection with a 
break-in in West Roxbury.  An individual's status as a pretrial 
detainee, however, does not permit a warrantless search of that 
individual's historical location information.  See Commonwealth 
v. Broom, 474 Mass. 486, 491-492 (2016) (warrant supported by 
probable cause required to access defendant's historical cell 
site location information [CSLI] subsequent to arrest).  Cf. 
Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 401 (2014) (requiring search 
warrant to access contents of cellular telephone while defendant 
was held pretrial); Shipley v. California, 395 U.S. 818, 820 
(1969) (requiring warrant to search defendant's house after 
defendant was arrested outside house).  The narrow "search 
incident to arrest" exception, which permits some warrantless 
searches when detainees first enter custody, is inapplicable 
here.  See Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 367 (1964) 
("Once an accused is under arrest and in custody, then a search 
made at another place, without a warrant, is simply not incident 
to the arrest").  Constitutional protections are in full force 
during pretrial detention.  Cf. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 
436, 444-445 (1966) (defendant retains right to remain silent 
under Fifth Amendment to United States Constitution throughout 
duration of custody). 
4 
 
 
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution require more, 
I respectfully dissent. 
Two relevant time periods.  The court is correct to 
separate this case into two moments of constitutional analysis:  
"the initial imposition of GPS monitoring for the purposes of 
probation," on the one hand, and the "subsequent review of the 
historical GPS location data for investigatory purposes after 
the defendant's probationary period had expired," on the other.  
Ante at    .  The court determines, and I agree, that the 
attachment of the GPS device in April 2012, at the defendant's 
own request, was a search, and that the search was lawful here.  
See Grady v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368, 1371 (2015) 
(electronic monitoring by physical bodily intrusion is search); 
Commonwealth v. Feliz, 481 Mass.    ,     (2019) (reviewing 
court must balance government interests in imposing GPS 
monitoring against defendant's reasonable expectation of 
privacy).  That lawful intrusion continued until September 2012, 
when the GPS device was removed and probationary supervision was 
terminated.  Approximately one year later, police sought to 
reexamine the defendant's old GPS records.  It is at that point, 
after the completion of probation, that the court fails to 
consider the defendant's actual and reasonable expectation of 
privacy with respect to the history of his movements.  See 
Commonwealth v. Augustine, 467 Mass. 230, 242 (2014), S.C., 470 
5 
 
 
Mass. 837 and 472 Mass. 448 (2015) (search occurs when 
government intrudes on actual and reasonable expectation of 
privacy). 
It is not implausible that, as the defendant asserts, once 
he was released from probation and the GPS device was removed 
from his ankle, he came to believe that the police could not 
"access [his] GPS data without a warrant."  The defendant states 
that he had been ordered to wear the GPS monitor "as a condition 
of [his] Probation" and was "told that the purpose of the GPS 
bracelet was to ensure that [he] did not enter any exclusionary 
zones."  Upon the successful completion of probation and the 
removal of the monitoring device, such insurance no longer was 
necessary, and the defendant received no indication that his 
location history would continue to be examined. 
The more significant question, and the one to which the 
court devotes the majority of its discussion, is whether an 
individual reasonably may expect his or her location history to 
become private after the probation department no longer requires 
it for the purposes of monitoring the individual's progress as a 
probationer.  To answer that question, we must turn to our 
jurisprudence regarding the expectations of privacy that 
individuals maintain in their historical location information.3 
                                                 
 
3 Without citation to any authority, the court insists, by 
ipse dixit, that the "governmental interest in detecting and 
6 
 
 
Historical location information.  "[U]nder art. 14, a 
person may reasonably expect not to be subjected to extended GPS 
electronic surveillance by the government, targeted at his 
movements, without judicial oversight and a showing of probable 
cause."  Augustine, 467 Mass. at 248, quoting Commonwealth v. 
Rousseau, 465 Mass. 372, 382 (2013).  This court has recognized 
that the history of an individual's movements, over a 
sufficiently lengthy period of time, reveals a great number of 
personal details.  When the government learns where people have 
been, it learns 
                                                 
determining whether a probationer had engaged in criminal 
activity during his probationary period does not disappear once 
the probationary period ends."  Ante at     .  It is not clear 
why this would be the case; after the termination of the 
probationary period, probation no longer can be revoked for a 
violation of probation.  At that point, the only interest in 
conducting the search would be to detect ordinary criminal 
wrongdoing.  Although "there are instances in which we have 
permitted searches without individualized suspicion, '[i]n none 
of these cases . . . did we indicate approval of a [search] 
whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary 
criminal wrongdoing.' . . .  That limitation is crucial."  See 
Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. 435, 468 (2013) (Scalia, J., 
dissenting), quoting Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 38 
(2000). 
 
 
In any event, the determination whether a search has 
occurred in the constitutional sense does not turn on the 
government's interest, but, rather, on the individual's 
expectation of privacy.  See Commonwealth v. Augustine, 467 
Mass. 230, 241 (2014), S.C., 470 Mass. 837 and 472 Mass. 448 
(2015).  See also United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 715 
(1984) (determining search was unconstitutional while 
recognizing that government "is extremely interested" in its 
outcome). 
7 
 
 
"not just where people go -- which doctors, religious 
services, and stores they visit -- but also the people and 
groups they choose to affiliate with and when they actually 
do so.  That information cuts across a broad range of 
personal ties with family, friends, political groups, 
health care providers, and others. . . .  [It] can provide 
an intimate picture of one's daily life."  (Citation 
omitted). 
 
See Augustine, supra.  The United States Supreme Court similarly 
has observed that historical location information reveals 
"familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual 
associations" (citation omitted).  Carpenter v. United States, 
138 S. Ct. 2206, 2217 (2018).  "These location records hold for 
many Americans the privacies of life" (quotations and citation 
omitted).  Id. 
Accordingly, both this court and the Supreme Court, 
applying art. 14 and the Fourth Amendment, respectively, have 
required a search warrant supported by probable cause prior to 
examining the long-term movements of an individual, as 
approximated by the movements of his or her cellular telephone 
through cell site location information (CSLI).  See Carpenter, 
138 S. Ct. at 2221; Augustine, 467 Mass. at 256.  As the Supreme 
Court has observed, "when the Government tracks the location of 
a cell phone it achieves near perfect surveillance, as if it had 
attached an ankle monitor to the phone's user."  Carpenter, 
supra at 2218. 
8 
 
 
This case goes a step further, asking us to consider what 
reasonable expectation of privacy a former probationer has when 
the government literally has "attached an ankle monitor" to that 
individual's leg.  In such a case of historical "perfect 
surveillance," the individual's privacy interest in the data 
collected ought not be less than that which we recognize in the 
case of cellular telephones. 
Yet the court concludes that no reasonable expectation of 
privacy was implicated here.  Had the police attempted to 
retrieve the defendant's location history by contacting his 
cellular telephone provider, our jurisprudence plainly would 
have required a warrant supported by probable cause.  See 
Augustine, 467 Mass. at 254-255.  The court, however, maintains 
that historical location information collected by a GPS ankle 
monitor is distinguishable from that collected by a cellular 
telephone for four reasons:  (1) probationers have diminished 
expectations of privacy; (2) the government is permitted to 
reexamine records it has collected lawfully; (3) we have 
permitted similar warrantless searches in the context of 
matching deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) profiles; and 
(4) relatively little information was examined in this case.  In 
my view, none of these arguments is persuasive. 
1.  Probationers' and former probationers' expectations of 
privacy.  The court notes that a probationer has a diminished 
9 
 
 
expectation of privacy relative to an "ordinary citizen."  Ante 
at     .  A "diminished" expectation of privacy, however, is not 
"no" expectation of privacy.  We previously have observed that 
probation is not imprisonment; indeed, it is not even on a par 
with parole.  See Commonwealth v. Moore, 473 Mass. 481, 485-486 
(2016) ("parole is more akin to imprisonment than probation is" 
[citation omitted]).  Accordingly, "art. 14 bars the imposition 
on probationers of a blanket threat of warrantless searches."  
Commonwealth v. LaFrance, 402 Mass. 789, 795 (1988) (requiring 
reasonable suspicion to search probationer's home and person, 
even where probationer consented to suspicionless searches). 
The court does not grapple with the implications of 
LaFrance.  Instead, it determines that, because the defendant 
knew he had been monitored via the GPS device, he could not 
reasonably expect his location to remain private when probation 
ceased.  See ante at     .  Even if knowledge of government 
surveillance were sufficient to defeat a reasonable expectation 
of privacy while the defendant actually was on probation,4 a 
                                                 
4 The court suggests that, because the monitoring here was 
not surreptitious, the defendant forfeits his expectation of 
privacy.  See ante at     .  I am troubled by the court's 
reasoning that, because the Commonwealth might have informed the 
defendant that he ought have no expectation of privacy -- i.e., 
the surveillance was not surreptitious -- his art. 14 rights 
thereby evaporated.  See ante at     .  "Notice of the 
government's claimed search authority" does not itself abrogate 
art. 14.  See 5 W.R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 10.10(c), at 
544-545 (5th ed. 2012) (criticizing role of "notice" in Federal 
10 
 
 
point we need not address, the defendant's expectation of 
privacy would have changed the day he completed his sentence.  
See United States v. Kincade, 379 F.3d 813, 870 (9th Cir. 2004) 
(Reinhardt, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 924 (2005) 
(defendant "has paid his debt to society," State has "cease[d] 
to have a supervisory interest over [him],"  and he merits "full 
future expectation of privacy"); id. at 871-872 (Kozinski, J., 
dissenting) ("Once [defendant] completes his period of 
supervised release, he becomes an ordinary citizen just like 
everyone else.  Having paid his debt to society, he recovers his 
full Fourth Amendment rights, and police have no greater 
authority to invade his private sphere than anyone else's").5 
The defendant, it must be remembered, was not a probationer 
at the time the police searched his GPS data; his period of 
probation had terminated nearly a year earlier.  Rather, the 
                                                 
probationer search cases).  See also Samson v. California, 547 
U.S. 843, 863 (2006) (Stevens, J., dissenting), quoting Smith v. 
Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740 n.5 (1979) ("the loss of a 
subjective expectation of privacy would play 'no meaningful 
role' in analyzing the legitimacy of expectations, for example, 
'if the Government were suddenly to announce on nationwide 
television that all homes henceforth would be subject to 
warrantless entry'"). 
 
 
5 The court discounts the notion that a former probationer 
would recover his or her right to privacy "retroactively," "as 
if he [or she] had never been on probation."  Ante at note 13.  
The court knocks down a straw man.  Here, the government 
searched the defendant's records after probation terminated.  
His rights were not retroactive; they protected him at the time 
of the search.  See note 7, infra. 
11 
 
 
defendant had returned to society as an "ordinary citizen."  See 
ante at     .  See also note 2, supra.  Nonprobationers, 
including former probationers, enjoy the full protections of 
art. 14 and the Fourth Amendment; for a nonprobationer, probable 
cause and a warrant are required to search historical location 
information.6  See generally Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2217; 
Augustine, 467 Mass. at 254-255. 
                                                 
 
6 The court's repeated references to the defendant as a 
probationer, following the termination of his period of 
probation, minimizes the difference between an actual 
probationer and a former probationer -- i.e., an ordinary 
citizen.  See, e.g., ante at     ("defendant-probationer"); id. 
at      ("probationer's GPS location data"); id. at      ("the 
defendant -- a probationer"). 
 
 
These references are a stark reminder of the court's 
underlying view that, for those who once wore GPS devices, 
probation never fully ends.  No matter how long a period of time 
elapses after the formal termination of probation, no matter how 
exemplary the person's conduct may be thereafter, he or she 
always will be branded a probationer.  It is of course easy 
enough to call "unreasonable" this miscreant defendant's 
postprobation expectation of privacy in data collected during a 
probationary period in which he repeatedly reoffended.  But the 
court's view encompasses as well those who, years after their 
successful rehabilitation, will have voluminous and intimately 
personal data exposed to intrusive governmental examination 
without probable cause or a warrant.  Surely at some point 
society would have to recognize as reasonable the former 
probationer's expectation of privacy, but when might that be?  
After five, nineteen, or twenty-five years?  After all statutes 
of limitation have run?  The court apparently settles on 
"never."  Believing as I -- and much of society -- do, in the 
possibility both of rehabilitation and of discharging one's debt 
to society, I conclude that people once on probation regain the 
rights and privileges of ordinary citizenship once their 
probation ends. 
12 
 
 
2.  Reexamination of formerly obtained information.  The 
court, however, appears to suggest that, because the GPS data 
had been collected lawfully by the probation department in the 
first instance, the Commonwealth is permitted to dip back into 
that well at any time.  In other words, once the government 
permissibly has obtained information about an individual, that 
individual is deprived permanently of all expectation of privacy 
in that information.7 
No reasonable person would expect, however, that the 
government, having lawfully obtained a copy of a suspect's 
historical CSLI, could post those records on the Internet or 
plaster them on billboards.  "It would appear reasonable to 
expect that a government agency, to which a citizen is required 
                                                 
 
7 In the context of warrant-based searches, this plainly is 
not the case.  Rather, a new warrant is required whenever the 
government seeks to reexamine digital evidence for some new 
investigatory purpose that exceeds the bounds of the initial 
search warrant.  See, e.g., United States v. Walser, 275 F.3d 
981, 987 (10th Cir. 2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 1069 (2002) 
(no violation of Fourth Amendment where, upon inadvertently 
discovering child pornography on computer, investigator 
"immediately suspended his search and went to a magistrate for a 
new warrant"); United States vs. Koch, U.S. Dist. Ct., No. 3:08-
cr-0105-JAJ (S.D. Iowa June 1, 2009), aff'd, 625 F.3d 470 (8th 
Cir. 2010) (investigator "did precisely what he should have 
done -- stopped his search soon after he found child pornography 
and sought a new search warrant").  Cf. 2 W.R. LaFave, J.H. 
Israel, N.J. King, & O.S. Kerr, Criminal Procedure § 3.4(j) (4th 
ed. 2015) ("A warrant may be executed only once, and thus if a 
place is to be searched a second time the proper procedure is to 
obtain a second warrant based on an affidavit explaining why 
there is now probable cause notwithstanding the execution of the 
earlier warrant" [footnote omitted]). 
13 
 
 
to submit certain materials, will use those materials solely for 
the purposes intended and not disclose them to others in ways 
that are unconnected with those intended purposes."  
Commonwealth v. Buccella, 434 Mass. 473, 485 (2001), cert. 
denied, 534 U.S. 1079 (2002).8  The government's permitted use of 
information it obtains is limited, and the subject of the 
information retains reasonable expectations of privacy in it. 
In the context of physical evidence, "[p]roperty seized 
pursuant to a search warrant must be restored to its owners when 
it is no longer needed."  See Commonwealth v. Sacco, 401 Mass. 
204, 207 n.3 (1987), citing G. L. c. 276, § 3.  Once the item is 
returned, the expectation of privacy is restored; to search the 
object again, probable cause and a warrant again are required.9  
That protection is not limited to physical objects; indeed, 
art. 14 and the Fourth Amendment are premised on privacy rights, 
not property rights.  See Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2213 ("the 
Court has recognized that property rights are not the sole 
                                                 
 
8 What is reasonable at one time, for one purpose, may not 
be reasonable at another time, for another purpose.  Cf. 
Zittrain, Searches and Seizures in a Networked World, 119 Harv. 
L. Rev. F. 83, 89 (2005) (reasonableness of searching 
individual's electronic files "ought to hinge in part on 
retaining such data no longer than necessary for a specific 
purpose"). 
 
 
9 See, e.g., People v. Trujillo, 15 Cal. App. 5th 574, 584 
(2017) ("If [defendant] is successful at his probation, the 
Fourth Amendment waiver will terminate and his electronic 
devices will again be completely private"). 
14 
 
 
measure of Fourth Amendment violations . . . and expanded our 
conception of the Amendment to protect certain expectations of 
privacy as well" [quotations and citations omitted]).  As 
Professor Orin Kerr cautions, it is necessary to impose the same 
constitutional protections on a search of the government's copy 
of digital data as would be imposed on the search of the 
individual's copy of the same.10  See Kerr, Searches and Seizures 
in a Digital World, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 531, 560 (2005). 
Otherwise, it is not clear, from the court's reasoning, 
what prevents a police officer from adding every CSLI record he 
or she legally obtains, pursuant to a warrant, to a database of 
accumulated government intelligence regarding the movements and 
whereabouts of any individual.  Nor is it clear when, if ever, 
judicial oversight would be exercised prior to permitting an 
officer -- operating even on an educated hunch -- from perusing 
that data at any point in the future.11 
                                                 
 
10 "Permitting the government to make and retain copies of 
our private electronic [information] seems inconsistent with our 
traditions.  The idea that the government could freely generate 
copies of our [data] and indefinitely retain [it] in government 
storage seems too Orwellian -- and downright creepy -- to be 
embraced as a Fourth Amendment rule."  Kerr, Searches and 
Seizures in a Digital World, 119 Harv. L. Rev. 531, 560 (2005).  
See also id. at 556 ("Over time, it should become increasingly 
clear that the Fourth Amendment should track the information, 
not the physical box"). 
 
 
11 "[T]he Government cites, and the Court is aware of, no 
authority suggesting that simply because it has retained all 
originally searchable electronic materials, the Government is 
15 
 
 
Such an accumulation of data, whether limited to GPS 
records of probationers or expanded to GPS records of ordinary 
citizens, "never would [have been] available through the use of 
traditional law enforcement tools of investigation" (emphasis in 
original).  See Augustine, 467 Mass. at 248, 254.  "At bottom, 
we must assur[e] preservation of that degree of privacy against 
government that existed when the Fourth Amendment was adopted" 
(quotation and citation omitted).12  United States v. Jones, 565 
                                                 
permitted to return to the proverbial well months or years after 
the relevant Warrant has expired to make another sweep for 
relevant evidence, armed with newly refined search criteria and 
novel case theories."  United States v. Wey, 256 F. Supp. 3d 
355, 406 (S.D.N.Y. 2017). 
 
 
In United States v. Ganias, 824 F.3d 199, 201, 207, 225 (2d 
Cir.), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 569 (2016), for example, 
investigators obtained digital records from an accountant in 
order to investigate two of his clients.  Three years later, the 
government sought to reexamine the records, this time targeting 
the accountant himself.  To do so, 
 
"the Government applied for a new search warrant and made 
clear in its application that it wished to run new searches 
over electronic materials that had been in its custody, and 
assumed irrelevant, for several years. . . .  The [Second] 
Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld the later search . . . in 
large measure because the Government had acted reasonably 
in applying for the second warrant and alerting the 
magistrate to the circumstances."  (Emphases in original.) 
 
Wey, 256 F. Supp. 3d at 407. 
 
 
12 "I would also consider the appropriateness of entrusting 
to the Executive, in the absence of any oversight from a 
coordinate branch, a tool so amenable to misuse, especially in 
light of the Fourth Amendment's goal to curb arbitrary exercises 
of police power to and prevent a too permeating police 
16 
 
 
U.S. 400, 406 (2012).  The construction of a database of 
individuals' location histories risks making "technologically 
feasible the Orwellian Big Brother."  See United States v. 
White, 401 U.S. 745, 770 (1971) (Harlan, J., dissenting).  Our 
traditions require this risk be balanced with the measured check 
of judicial oversight. 
3.  DNA databases.  The court asserts that there is nothing 
to fear from this new technology, as it merely "identifies [the 
defendant's] presence at the scene of a crime," not unlike 
comparing DNA sample against a government database.  Ante 
at    .  Relying on Boroian v. Mueller, 616 F.3d 60, 67-68 (1st 
Cir. 2010), the court maintains that matching a probationer's 
DNA profile after the termination of probation does not violate 
a reasonable expectation of privacy.  See ante at     . 
DNA relates to an individual's identity; indeed, it 
"reveal[s] nothing more than the identity of the source."  See 
Commonwealth v. Arzola, 470 Mass. 809, 816 (2015), cert. denied, 
136 S. Ct. 792 (2016).  It may well be that individuals do not 
have a reasonable expectation of privacy in concealing their 
identity, i.e., their face, fingerprint, DNA, or other immutable 
identifiers, from the police.  But location data reveals more. 
                                                 
surveillance" (citations omitted).  United States v. Jones, 565 
U.S. 400, 415–17 (2012) (Sotomayor, J., concurring). 
17 
 
 
Indeed, the United States Court of Appeals for the First 
Circuit reasoned that warrantless DNA-matching was permissible 
precisely because a DNA profile "does not reveal any new, 
private or intimate information about [the defendant]."  See 
Boroian, 616 F.3d at 67.  The same cannot be said of long-term 
GPS data.  As we have observed, long-term location information 
can paint an "intimate picture of one's daily life" (citation 
omitted).  Augustine, 467 Mass. at 248.  See Carpenter, 138 S. 
Ct. at 2217. 
It is one thing to permit an officer of the Commonwealth to 
examine, without cause, the presence of alleles across various 
DNA samples stored in a DNA database.  It is quite another to 
allow that officer to examine the minute-by-minute location 
history of individuals over a period of months, revealing, as 
that analysis may, any number of "familial, political, 
professional, religious, and sexual associations" (citation 
omitted).  See Carpenter, 138 S. Ct. at 2217.13  Notably, and 
                                                 
13 The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit 
further reasoned that "the government's comparison of [the 
defendant's] DNA profile with other profiles in [the Combined 
DNA Index System database (CODIS)] is precisely the use for 
which the profile was initially lawfully created and entered 
into CODIS."  Boroian v. Mueller, 616 F.3d 60, 67 (1st Cir. 
2010).  Yet, here, the government's comparison of the 
defendant's location history with the locations of known break-
ins is not the use for which the defendant's location 
information initially was collected.  "There is a need to 
supervise [a probationer] both to aid in the probationer's 
rehabilitation and to ensure her compliance with the conditions 
18 
 
 
contrary to the court's characterization, the Commonwealth's 
examination of location data in this case far exceeded merely 
identifying an individual's binary "presence." 
4.  Amount of information examined.  The court takes pains 
to assure us that police "targeted their analysis" to "the time 
and location of particular criminal activity," such that their 
review was "not a search in the constitutional sense."  Ante 
at     .  The court previously has determined, for example, that 
police may examine up to six hours of historical location 
information from a cellular telephone provider without judicial 
oversight, as the duration is too short to infringe upon 
reasonable expectations of privacy.14  See Commonwealth v. 
                                                 
of probation."  See Commonwealth v. LaFrance, 402 Mass. 789, 
792-793 (1988).  Once probation was terminated, however, the 
location information was repurposed, a year later, as an 
investigative tool; this was not "precisely the use" for which 
it originally was intended.  See Boroian, supra. 
 
14 In establishing this six-hour safe harbor, we emphasized 
that, "in terms of reasonable expectation of privacy, the 
salient consideration is the length of time for which a person's 
CSLI is requested, not the time covered by the person's CSLI 
that the Commonwealth ultimately seeks to use as evidence at 
trial."  Commonwealth v. Estabrook, 472 Mass. 852, 858-859 
(2015).  For example, "[i]t would violate the constitutional 
principles underlying our decision in Augustine to permit the 
Commonwealth to request and obtain without a warrant two weeks 
of CSLI -- or longer -- so long as the Commonwealth seeks to use 
evidence relating only to six hours of that CSLI".  See id. at 
859.  The defendant is not required to show that police "mapped 
out months of [his] historical GPS location data in a 
coordinated effort to recreate a full mosaic of his personal 
life."  See ante at     .  At the point at which the 
19 
 
 
Estabrook, 472 Mass. 852, 858 (2015).  The court suggests 
similar reasoning here:  the examination of the defendant's 
historical location information was narrow, and ergo, it was not 
a search.  The record, however, paints a different picture. 
 
As a probationer, the defendant was monitored by means of a 
GPS device once every minute for a period of six months, from 
April to September 2012.  According to the uncontroverted 
statements in the defendant's memorandum in support of his 
motion to suppress, Barbara McDonough, of the probation 
department, gave a presentation to police one year later, on 
October 9, 2013, detailing the defendant's GPS history.  
Marshfield police Detective Kim Jones subsequently cross-
referenced that information with the dates of the break-ins. 
 
At the time, police were investigating ten break-ins 
occurring between May and September 2012.  In the case of one 
break-in on September 1, 2012, the homeowners had been away for 
the four-day Labor Day weekend, beginning on August 31, 2012, 
only to discover the break-in upon their return on September 3.  
Reviewing the defendant's GPS records, police determined that 
the defendant was in or near the house on the evening of 
September 1 and the early morning of September 2.  It is 
difficult to imagine how police would have reached that 
                                                 
Commonwealth obtains the data, it has violated the individual's 
reasonable expectation of privacy. 
20 
 
 
conclusion without examining the defendant's location for the 
entire four-day period (ninety-six hours).  The defendant's 
location history was further examined with respect to the other 
nine break-ins.15 
 
It is also clear that the search was not limited only to 
the dates and times during which the break-ins were believed to 
have actually occurred.  At the nonevidentiary hearing on the 
motion to suppress,16 the Commonwealth acknowledged that the 
probation department was "able to map [the] defendant's actions 
that were consistent with not only breaking into the houses," 
but also, in other instances, "prior to breaking into the 
houses, casing the houses." 
 
Combined, it hardly overstates the record to say that the 
Commonwealth's search encompassed hundreds of hours of location 
information, spanning multiple days before and during potential 
                                                 
 
15 At a minimum, these required additional examinations of 
the defendant's movements on May 8, 2012; May 16, 2012; June 4, 
2012; July 14, 2012; and August 27, 2012.  Moreover, it is not 
clear that police were aware of the particular times during 
which the break-ins occurred; if not, even further examination 
of the defendant's movements would have been required merely 
with respect to these specific incidents. 
 
 
16 On March 19, 2015, the motion judge held an evidentiary 
hearing with respect to the defendant's first argument in 
support of his motion to suppress, that his arrest was an 
unlawful search and seizure.  On February 10, 2016, the judge 
held a nonevidentiary hearing on the defendant's second 
argument, that the examination of his GPS records was unlawful 
as a warrantless search.  The judge denied the motion to 
suppress on both grounds on March 16, 2016. 
21 
 
 
periods of suspicious activity, throughout a several-month 
period.  To be sure, the information proved useful.  But I am 
not persuaded that the investigation was "too brief to implicate 
[a] person's reasonable privacy interest" (citation omitted).  
Contrast Estabrook, 472 Mass. at 858 (no warrant required to 
examine six hours of location information).  Indeed, the motion 
judge made no such finding.17  Accordingly, on the evidence 
before the motion judge, the defendant met his burden to show 
that the Commonwealth violated his reasonable expectations of 
privacy.  See Commonwealth v. Miller, 475 Mass. 212, 219-220 
(2016).  Before the search was undertaken, probable cause and a 
warrant should have been secured. 
                                                 
 
17 The judge's relevant findings, based on stipulated facts, 
were as follows: 
 
"[Randolph police] decided to contact the Commissioner of 
Probation and obtain records of [the defendant's] location 
at various times to determine if they matched up with 
unsolved housebreaks on the South Shore.  To that end, 
[Randolph police] contacted Marshfield Police Detective Kim 
Jones . . . and suggested she contact the probation 
department and look into [the defendant's] whereabouts.  
Thereafter, the Marshfield police and two probation 
officers reviewed the record of [the defendant's] travels 
into Marshfield, Hanson and Pembroke.  Once this 
information was developed, Jones cross-referenced it with 
recent break-ins in those three towns and discovered that 
[the defendant] was at the scene of the housebreaks at the 
time of the alleged breaks." 
 
The judge made no finding with respect to the scope of the GPS 
data reviewed, nor does his reasoning rely on the narrowness 
thereof. 
22 
 
 
 
Having determined, instead, that the search was 
insufficiently extensive to merit constitutional protection, the 
court nonetheless acknowledges that a reasonable expectation of 
privacy may be implicated, "even for a probationer subjected to 
GPS monitoring," where police "map[] out months of the 
defendant's GPS location data . . . over an extended and 
unnecessary period of time."  See ante at     .  The court 
insists, however, that such a case, which "might raise 
different, more difficult constitutional questions" is not 
before us and "[w]e need not, and do not, decide that question 
today."  Id. at     . 
 
I would require a warrant supported by probable cause even 
where fewer than "months" of GPS data were examined, consistent 
with our jurisprudence in Augustine, 467 Mass. at 254-255, and 
Estabrook, 472 Mass. at 858.  To the extent that the court is 
concerned that the review of "months" of historical GPS data 
raises "difficult constitutional questions," in my view, those 
questions are raised here.  Evidence of such a months-long 
search was not before the motion judge, and therefore does not 
form the basis of my determination that the judge's denial of 
the motion to suppress was error.  See Commonwealth v. Rivera, 
441 Mass. 358, 367 (2004) ("Evidence adduced at trial but not 
before the motion judge . . . cannot be determinative of the 
propriety of the motion judge's decision" [citation omitted]).  
23 
 
 
Insofar as the court's reasoning is premised on a finding that 
this search was "targeted," however, I note that the motion 
judge made no such finding, see note 17, supra, and the 
information now known to us does not support one. 
 
Indeed, information developed following the denial of the 
motion to suppress suggests that the search in this case was 
much broader than the court is willing to acknowledge.  In 
Johnson, 91 Mass. App. Ct. 296, to which the court itself cites, 
this defendant appealed from other charges stemming from the 
Commonwealth's search of his probationary GPS records.  The same 
Barbara McDonough of the probation department conducted the GPS 
records searches in both cases.  She testified as to the manner 
in which she conducted the search as follows: 
"McDonough testified that she searched the defendant's 
minute-by-minute movements for the entire period he was 
monitored by the GPS system, namely from July 8, 2013, 
forward.  'Each day was a 24-hour investigation on him to 
see where he was, until the time he came off the bracelet.' 
. . .  She reviewed several months' worth of historical 
data to determine the defendant's location and movements at 
all times of day and night, and overlaid the data on a map.  
The data revealed not only the defendant's location, but 
also his speed and direction.  The data tracked the 
defendant into buildings, including private residences." 
 
Id. at 318 (Wolohojian, J., dissenting).  McDonough reported her 
findings in that case to Boston police in November 2013, less 
than one month after her report to the Marshfield police in this 
case.  Although we do not have the benefit of McDonough's 
testimony in this case, it seems reasonable to conclude that her 
24 
 
 
methods did not differ substantially between her two 
examinations of the same defendant's GPS records, conducted 
within the span of several weeks. 
 
Evidence admitted at trial in this case corroborates 
McDonough's testimony regarding her meticulous methods.  Exhibit 
2A, the first of the Commonwealth's maps of the defendant's 
movements, is labeled as the defendant's "Position History" from 
"12:00:00 A.M." to "11:59:59 P.M." on September 1, 2012.  The 
exhibit is only the first of several such maps.  Taken together, 
it would appear that the Commonwealth examined the defendant's 
minute-by-minute movements for periods of twenty-four hours at a 
time over the course of several months, thus clearly exceeding 
the "targeted" analysis the court portrays, and raising the very 
questions the court leaves for another day.  See ante at     . 
 
In the interest not of expediency, but of justice, i.e., 
reaching the right result, we ought not blind ourselves to the 
indications that this search was far more extensive than 
initially assumed.  If the court intends to rely on findings 
regarding the scope of the search, it should remand for an 
evidentiary hearing to determine the true extent of the GPS data 
examined. 
Conclusion.  Article 14 and the Fourth Amendment exist to 
inject some degree of judicial oversight into the process by 
which the government may conduct surveillance.  See Carpenter, 
25 
 
 
138 S. Ct. at 2214.  To the extent that their protections are 
dimmed while an individual is on probation, they must return to 
full brightness upon completion of the probationary term.  
"Interposition of a warrant requirement is designed not to 
shield 'wrongdoers,' but to secure a measure of privacy and a 
sense of personal security throughout our society."  White, 401 
U.S. at 790 (Harlan, J., dissenting). 
 
Doubtless, the court's decision today will aid in the rapid 
resolution of future investigations, as it did in this case.  
So, too, would granting carte blanche for police to obtain any 
individual's historical location records without a demonstration 
of cause.  Yet "[our ancestors], after consulting the lessons of 
history, designed our Constitution to place obstacles in the way 
of a too permeating police surveillance, which they seemed to 
think was a greater danger to a free people than the escape of 
some criminals from punishment."  United States v. Di Re, 332 
U.S. 581, 595 (1948).  The accumulation and inspection of vast 
amounts of personal historical location data, in great excess of 
anything previously available to the Commonwealth, without any 
judicial oversight, is a sobering specter.  That the court 
promises Big Brother will be watching only those individuals who 
once served probationary sentences is of little consolation. 
 
This is not to say that the government should destroy its 
records after the termination of probation.  On the contrary, 
26 
 
 
the Commonwealth may retain those records indefinitely, and the 
records well may prove invaluable.  Even so, there is a 
difference between maintaining evidence and searching it.  The 
latter always has required a showing of probable cause and a 
warrant, at least for those not on probation.  I would require 
the same here. 
Hence, I would conclude that, where police engage in a 
search of a nonprobationer's GPS history, art. 14 and the Fourth 
Amendment require a warrant supported by probable cause.  As 
police did not procure a warrant in this case, the search is 
presumptively unreasonable. 18  See Commonwealth v. White, 475 
Mass. 583, 588 (2016).  It then would be the Commonwealth's 
burden to "show that [it] falls within a narrow class of 
permissible exceptions to the warrant requirement," such as 
probable cause and exigent circumstances (quotation and citation 
omitted).  Id.  Because the Commonwealth has not made such a 
showing, I would reverse the denial of the defendant's motion to 
suppress. 
                                                 
18 In denying the defendant's motion to suppress, the judge 
primarily relied on G. L. c. 276, § 90, which permits police to 
review probation records "at all times."  As the court correctly 
notes, however, that the Legislature has sought to permit State 
action by statute does not mean that such action escapes 
constitutional review.  See Commonwealth v. Blood, 400 Mass. 61, 
75 (1987) (independently reviewing statute in light of art. 14). 
27 
 
 
 
Finally, I call upon the Legislature to revisit G. L. 
c. 276, § 90, the statute that permits police to examine 
probation records at any time, including any time after 
probation has ended.  The statute, enacted in 1880 and last 
amended in 1938, did not contemplate the long-term collection of 
GPS data.  This information now forms part of a probationer's 
"records."  After eighty years, much has changed.  The 
Legislature should consider whether this new and expansive 
information truly ought to remain open to government inspection, 
for any purpose and at any time.