United States v. Brian Terry, 909 F.3d 716

MDENT agents began investigating Terry after finding drug remnants in trash tied to his residence and obtained a warrant to search the residence.
On April 18, 2016, after encountering Terry at a store, agents smelled marijuana; Terry surrendered a small amount and received a misdemeanor citation. While this occurred, an MDENT agent secretly placed a GPS tracker on Terry’s gold Kia without a warrant.
Later the same day Terry permitted a residence search (yielded nothing); Corporal Johnson then obtained a magistrate warrant to “ping” Terry’s phone and place the GPS tracker, failing to disclose that the tracker had already been affixed.
Two days later agents used GPS data to follow the Kia; after the car returned to West Virginia they observed (and confirmed via GPS) a speeding violation, stopped the vehicle, and discovered 195.5 grams of methamphetamine on Terry.
Terry moved to suppress evidence as fruit of an unlawful warrantless GPS search; the district court found a flagrant constitutional violation but denied suppression for lack of Terry’s standing. The Fourth Circuit reversed, holding Terry had standing and that attenuation did not purge the taint, vacating the conviction.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Standing to challenge warrantless GPS placement	Terry was the driver when the tracker was placed and thus had standing to challenge the vehicle search	Government argued Terry lacked standing at time of the April 20 stop because he had relinquished control of the Kia	Court: Terry had standing because he drove the Kia when tracker was placed (citing Rusher)
Whether evidence from traffic stop was fruit of illegal GPS search	The methamphetamine was discovered as a direct result of unlawful GPS tracking; suppression required	Government argued speeding stop was an intervening circumstance that attenuated the taint	Court: Attenuation factors favor suppression; the speeding stop did not purge the taint
Application of Brown v. Illinois attenuation factors	Terry: temporal proximity, lack of meaningful intervening circumstances, and flagrancy of misconduct weigh for exclusion	Government: two-day lapse and the speeding violation break the causal chain	Court: Two-day lapse was insubstantial; speeding was tied to GPS data; flagrancy of deliberate warrantless tracking required suppression
Whether Sprinkle compels a different result	Terry: distinguishing facts — GPS-directed surveillance here vs. independent criminal act in Sprinkle	Government: relied on Sprinkle to argue attenuation	Court: Sprinkle distinguishable; no bright-line rule; facts here require suppression

United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012) (installation of a tracking device on a vehicle is a Fourth Amendment search)
Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963) (exclusionary rule and the ‘‘fruit of the poisonous tree’’ doctrine)
Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975) (three-factor attenuation test for purging taint)
Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct. 2056 (2016) (attenuation analysis and role of intervening circumstances/warrants)
United States v. Gaines, 668 F.3d 170 (4th Cir. 2012) (attenuation and evaluation of taint)
United States v. Oscar-Torres, 507 F.3d 224 (4th Cir. 2007) (suppression principles for derivative evidence)
United States v. Andrews, 577 F.3d 231 (4th Cir. 2009) (exclusionary rule scope)
United States v. Rusher, 966 F.2d 868 (4th Cir. 1992) (driver has standing to challenge vehicle search despite not owning vehicle)
United States v. Sprinkle, 106 F.3d 613 (4th Cir. 1997) (distinguishable attenuation analysis where defendant committed independent violent crime)
Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796 (1984) (limits of attenuation where nexus between illegality and evidence remains strong)