Va. appeals court upholds tracking suspects with GPS

Emily Babay 
Washington Examiner 

Police can use a GPS device to track the movements of a suspect’s vehicle without first obtaining a warrant, the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

The court held that police did not violate the privacy rights of David L. Foltz, a suspect in a series of sexual assaults, when they placed a GPS on the bumper of his vehicle. 

In upholding Foltz’s conviction on charges of abduction with intent to defile, the appeals court weighed in on the hot-button issue of how the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures regulates police use of technology.

The appeals court said Foltz had no expectation of privacy on a public street.

Police suspected Foltz, a convicted rapist, in a series of attacks on women in Fairfax County when they placed the GPS on the van he drove for work while it was parked on a public street on Feb. 1, 2008. 

Police said the GPS placed Foltz near the scene of a sexual assault and officers began physically following him the next day. He was apprehended during an attempted assault Feb. 6. 

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