United States v. Jones (2012)

United States v. Antoine Jones
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 8, 2011 Decided January 23, 2012
Full case name	United States v. Antoine Jones
Docket no.	10-1259
Citations	565 U.S. 400 (more) 132 S. Ct. 945; 181 L. Ed. 2d 911; 2012 U.S. LEXIS 1063; 80 U.S.L.W. 4125
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Motion to suppress evidence denied, 451 F. Supp. 2d 71 (D.D.C. 2012); motion for reconsideration denied, 511 F. Supp. 2d 74 (D.D.C. 2007); reversed sub nom. United States v. Maynard, 615 F.3d 544 (D.C. Cir. 2010); rehearing en banc denied, 625 F.3d 766 (2010); certiorari granted, 564 U.S. 1036 (2011).
Holding
The attachment of the GPS device to a vehicle by the police, and its use to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment and requires a warrant.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Scalia, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Sotomayor
Concurrence	Sotomayor
Concurrence	Alito (in judgment), joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. IV

United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that installing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment.^[1]

In 2004, Antoine Jones was suspected by police in the District of Columbia of drug trafficking. Investigators asked for and received a warrant to attach a GPS tracking device to the underside of Jones's car but then exceeded the warrant's scope in both geography and length of time. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that this was a search under the Fourth Amendment, although they were split 5-4 as to the fundamental reasons behind that conclusion. The majority held that by physically installing the GPS device on Jones's car, the police had committed a trespass against his "personal effects". This trespass, in an attempt to obtain information, constituted a search per se.^[1]