Opinion ID: 1086355
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Reliance on Out-of-Circuit GPS Cases

Text: We therefore consider the Government‟s contention that the good faith exception applies because the police acted in objectively reasonable reliance on out-of-circuit precedent sanctioning warrantless GPS surveillance. (Appellant Br. at 15-16 (“Before [Jones], all but one of the courts of appeals to have addressed the issue had approved the warrantless installation and monitoring of a GPS device on a vehicle. . . . [T]he agents‟ reliance on this body of case law was objectively reasonable . . . .”).) And while the Government relies, in no small part, on the reasoning in Davis for support, we think that reading Davis so broadly would strain its reasoning, to say nothing of its holding.17 17 We note that the majority in Davis itself suggested that its holding is inapplicable to the situation presented in this case. While explaining that its ruling will not deter defendants from challenging existing Fourth Amendment doctrine, the Supreme Court noted: This Court reviews criminal convictions from 12 Federal Courts of Appeals, 50 state courts of last resort, and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. If one or even many of these courts uphold a particular type of search or seizure, defendants in jurisdictions in which the question remains open will still have an undiminished incentive to litigate the issue. This Court can then grant certiorari, and the development of Fourth Amendment law will in no way be stunted. 41 The Davis decision hinged on the understanding that “[r]esponsible law-enforcement officers will take care to learn what is required of them under Fourth Amendment precedent and will conform their conduct to these rules.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). At the most basic level, then, the applicable body of “Fourth Amendment precedent” to which the responsible officer must conform consists of those decisions that are binding on the officer‟s jurisdiction. Accord Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 599 (2006) (noting that officers are expected to learn and abide by “what is required of them” by courts having jurisdiction over them). Thus, as already stated, the Court in Davis recognized that the good faith exception applies to situations where the police “conducted a search in objectively reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent,” 131 S. Ct. at 2434, because “[t]he deterrent effect . . . in such a case can only be to discourage the officer from do[ing] his duty,” which was not “the kind of deterrence the exclusionary rule seeks to foster,” id. at 2429 (internal quotation marks omitted). The same cannot be said where the law is unsettled in a particular jurisdiction, even where persuasive authority may exist in the form of decisions by other circuit courts. Indeed, extending the rationale from Davis to cover reliance on out-of-circuit precedent would turn this principle on its head: Though our first and last word on the matter is that warrantless GPS searches are unconstitutional, in effect the Government argues that our sister circuits‟ decisions Davis, 131 S. Ct. at 2433 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted). Thus, the Court in Davis recognized that its holding was limited to jurisdictions where the law was clearly settled. 42 should control whether the evidence is excluded. This rule would eviscerate the notion that clear and well-settled precedent should control and thus contradicts the basic principles of stare decisis. We respect our sister circuits, but their decisions cannot dictate our conclusions. As such, any law enforcement officer who acts primarily in reliance on the Fourth Amendment proclamations of our sister circuits does so at his own peril for purposes of the exclusionary rule. This is particularly true where, as in this case, our sister circuits are split on the relevant issue. The GPS search of Harry Katzin‟s van occurred in late 2010. By that time, four of our sister circuits — the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits — had addressed GPS surveillance. Of those, three circuits had held that GPS surveillance either did not constitute a search or, even if it did, that the police did not require a warrant. See McIver, 186 F.3d 1119; Garcia, 474 F.3d 994; Pineda-Moreno, 591 F.3d 1212; Marquez, 605 F.3d 604. At the same time, the D.C. Circuit had held in United States v. Maynard (which became Jones on appeal to the Supreme Court) that GPS surveillance did constitute a search and that the police did require a warrant. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544. At bottom, then, the Government seems to argue that reliance on a majority of a minority of our sister circuits is sufficient to escape the exclusionary rule. This cannot be. Although we find it commendable that law enforcement personnel would take the time to pore over out-of-circuit decisions relating to police procedures, it is not their duty for purposes of the exclusionary rule to parse and weigh the decisions of our sister circuits in an attempt to predict what 43 this Court (or even the Supreme Court) would say if faced with a similar case.18 18 The Government urges that our analysis in United States v. Duka, 671 F.3d 329, 347 (3d Cir. 2011) (addressing evidence obtained in a search pursuant to the Foreign Intelligent Surveillance Act (FISA)), supports the proposition that the reasoning from Davis is not limited to binding precedent. (Appellant Br. at 61-62 (“[The] insistence on binding authority does not accord with this Court‟s approach following Davis. . . . [Duka] undermines the district court‟s position that reliance on non-binding case law . . . is per se unreasonable.”).) This is not correct. Not only was the good faith discussion in Duka based on a different Supreme Court decision — Krull, which addressed objectively reasonable reliance on a later-invalidated statute — but the entire discussion of the good faith exception is dicta. See Duka, 671 F.3d at 346 (discussing the “good faith” exception only after noting that “[w]e are confident that FISA‟s „significant purpose‟ test satisfies the Fourth Amendment”). Moreover, the Government‟s argument seems to hinge on a footnote that contains the opinion‟s lone citation to Davis. In that footnote, this Court stated that “[t]he objective reasonableness of the officers‟ reliance on the statute in this case is further bolstered by the fact that the particular provision at issue has been reviewed and declared constitutional by several courts, going as far back as 2002.” Id. at 347 n.12 (collecting cases). Since none of these “several courts” are the Third Circuit, the Government argues, Duka demonstrates our willingness to apply the rationale from Davis to non-binding authority. We think this makes a mountain out of a molehill: this single 44 Moreover, we cannot burden district courts with the type of case-by-case assessment that the Government‟s position would require. Unlike the archetypal situations in Leon or Davis, finding that the good faith exception applies in this case would, of necessity, require courts ruling on suppression motions to discern what amounts to sufficient out-of-circuit authority for purposes of an objectively reasonable good faith belief. Thus, district courts would need to consider how many circuits had addressed the police practice in question, what each one had said, whether the statements were mere dicta, and myriad other factors. Such an approach has no limiting principle and defies rational application. Surely police reliance on a single out-of-circuit decision could not support good faith, but what about two? If the circuits split two-to-one, that would present yet another problem. And what if our sister courts had all ruled in nearunanimity on a point, with one stalwart (perhaps, highly persuasive) holdout? Is the presence of good faith to be decided with an abacus or does the strength of each court‟s argument bear consideration? Because we foresee that it could lead to a sprawling, amorphous, and self-contradicting doctrine, we decline to adopt the Government‟s position and hold that reliance on out-of-circuit precedent (even where there is a so-called “consensus”) cannot, in and of itself, support application of the good faith exception.19 reference to Davis comes in dicta, in a footnote, as part of a “cf.” citation. 19 To see just how unwieldy the analysis could be, we need look no further than the Government‟s own arguments in this case. At oral argument, the Government attempted to minimize the significance of Maynard, suggesting that this 45