GPS as a Criminal Guide: United States v. Martin, 15 F.4th 878 (8th Cir. 2021)

This week is our last week visiting the Eighth Circuit for a little while. Our case today again involves a traffic stop and a vehicle search, but we will branch off a bit in that a GPS tracker is used to find a suspect. While technology can be a blessing and a curse for law enforcement, it can prove to hold the same truth for two men committing a robbery. 

Before getting into the facts, let’s review how the Fourth Amendment applies to someone in a vehicle and further dive into reasonable suspicion when it comes to a vehicle. The Fourth Amendment secures the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” According to United States v. Houston, a traffic stop is a seizure and “must be supported by reasonable suspicion or probable cause.”  

The Fourth Amendment secures the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Police are permitted to make investigative stops of a vehicle if they have reasonable suspicion that an individual in that vehicle recently committed a crime in the general area. “A reasonable suspicion is a ‘particularized and objective’ basis for suspecting [criminal activity by] the person who is stopped.[i]”. Reasonable suspicion is determined by “look[ing] at the totality of the circumstances of each case to see whether the detaining officer has a particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing [based on his] own experience and specialized training to make inferences from and deductions about the cumulative information available [ii]”. “Reasonable suspicion must be supported by more than a mere hunch, but the likelihood of criminal activity need not rise to the level required for probable cause, and it falls considerably short of satisfying the preponderance of the evidence standard.” 

Now that we have the case law in place, let’s dive into the facts.  

 FACTS 

A man robbed a Sprint Wireless Express store in Davenport, Iowa, at gunpoint, making off with cell phones, tablets, and a GPS tracker courtesy of the store employee. The employee called police, describing the robber as 5’ 7” tall, heavyset, African American male, with a grey ski mask, a blue hooded sweatshirt, and grey sweatpants. The employee described the getaway car as a dark green Pontiac Grand Am or Grand Prix driven by someone he did not see, and said the vehicle went north on Elmore Avenue. The employee also reported that the robber had a tiny, silver handgun. 

Officers responded to the store within minutes, and shortly thereafter they began receiving location reports from the GPS tracker, which updated every six seconds. The data, collected by a third-party provider directed officers to the intersection of Kimberly and Spring Streets, about one and a half miles from the store. At the intersection, officers saw two cars: a white one and a dark blue, four-door Ford Contour. There were two black male passengers in the dark blue car and police noticed that the occupants were not looking around at the multiple squad cars. When the dark blue car pulled through the intersection and into a gas station, one officer turned on his overhead lights. 

After stopping the car, officers ordered the occupants out of the car. The officers secured the driver first, and then the passenger, later identified as Christopher Martin. Police brought the store employee to the scene for a show-up identification. Police removed a handcuffed Martin from the squad car and pointed a spotlight at him. The employee said he was ninety percent sure that Martin was the robber based on build and clothing. 

The officers searched the car and found the stolen cell phones and tablets. The government charged Martin with a variety of criminal offenses. 

Martin filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized during the stop. Martin argued that GPS tracking data and the fact that the store employee’s description of the getaway vehicle was not a match did not provide probable cause or reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle in which he was traveling. 

EIGHTH CIRCUIT COURT OPINION 

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed for several reasons:

1. Considering the tight window of opportunity the officers have to locate a fleeing suspect, the court found it was reasonable for police to rely on third-party GPS data.
2. The stop occurred at the intersection of Kimberly and Spring Streets, which was in the general vicinity of the crime scene.
3. When the five police cars arrived at the intersection, they saw two vehicles; police could reasonably rule out one because it did not even remotely match the description given by the store employee. The second vehicle, the Ford Contour, roughly matched the description, and it had the same general shape as a Pontiac Grand Am and Grand Prix. In addition, the court noted that store employee only saw the car briefly and described its color as being as dark green was close to the color of the Ford Contour, which was dark blue.
4. The officers noticed the unusual behavior of the car’s occupants, who did not acknowledge an “overwhelming police presence.”

Based on these facts, the court held that the officers had reasonable suspicion to stop the Ford Contour. 

TAKEAWAYS 

We’ve dealt with three Eighth Circuit vehicle cases in the past three weeks. Some key takeaways should revolve around what it means to have reasonable suspicion when handling a vehicle stop and how far that suspicion extends. From today’s case in particular we can apply tools that we can use during a crime that is in progress, which now includes a stolen GPS.  

This publication is produced to provide general information on the topic presented. It is distributed with the understanding that the publisher (Daigle Law Group, LLC.) is not engaged in rendering legal or professional services. Although this publication is prepared by professionals, it should not be used as a substitute for professional services. If legal or other professional advice is required, the services of a professional should be sought. 

[i] United States v. Bustos-Torres, 396 F.3d 935, 942 (8th Cir. 2005) (citation omitted) 

[ii] United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002).