The full Virginia Court of Appeals says Fairfax County police did not violate a suspect’s privacy rights when they placed a GPS device on his vehicle without first obtaining a warrant.
The court affirmed the conviction of David L. Foltz on charges of abduction with intent to defile, upholding a three-judge panel’s opinion in the case last year.
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.
In its opinion, the appeals court said that Foltz had no expectation of privacy on the public street and police were already targeting Foltz as a suspect, so the GPS tracking simply provided additional information.
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 a few days later.
The full appeals court said the three-judge panel was correct when it denied Foltz’s request to suppress evidence gained from the GPS tracking as a violation of the Fourth Amendment‘s ban on unreasonable searches.
