Oregon Public Broadcasting

Attorneys involved in a Medford legal case are deciding whether to continue challenging a GPS-based surveillance technique. April Baer reports.

In 2007, Juan Pineda-Moreno was seen buying a kind of fertilizer drug agents found suspicious.

They wondered if he was growing marijuana outdoors. So they followed him to his trailer, and, during the night, attached a GPS tracking device to his SUV.

That, says his attorney, Harrison Latto, represents a violation of 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable searches.

Harrison Latto: “Because the device enabled the police to gain certain info that is qualitatively of a different kind than they would obtain had they followed the suspect in public.”

A panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court’s ruling in the case.

The three judges found that agents were in a semi-private area, when they approached the vehicle – not gated, or otherwise designated as private property.

Latto says he expects some further action will be taken, but no decision has been made about an appeal.