United States v. Wells, 341 A.3d 1096

Background

CSOSA for decades used a regulation authorizing “electronic monitoring,” later implemented as GPS ankle tracking, and shared real-time GPS data with MPD for investigations.
This court in Davis v. United States held CSOSA lacked statutory authority to unilaterally impose GPS monitoring, so such searches are not justifiable under the special-needs doctrine.
Damairzio Wells was placed on GPS monitoring twice under CSOSA administrative sanctions (without court or Parole Commission authorization); MPD used CSOSA GPS data to identify and arrest him for an armed robbery.
Wells moved to suppress the GPS-derived evidence; the government conceded the GPS monitoring was unconstitutional under Davis but argued the good-faith exception should preserve the evidence because CSOSA reasonably relied on its own regulation.
The trial court granted suppression; the Court of Appeals (majority) affirmed, holding the good-faith exception does not apply where a law-enforcement agency itself authorizes systemic, unauthorized searches.
A dissenting judge would have applied the good-faith framework to decline suppression, emphasizing objective reasonableness and treating agency rulemaking analogously to legislative or other nonpolice actors.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Wells)	Defendant's Argument (Government/CSOSA)	Held
Whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule shields evidence from a search that CSOSA authorized by its own regulations but that was later held unconstitutional	Exclusion should apply; allowing agency-regulation reliance would encourage systemic constitutional violations and remove the exclusionary rule’s deterrent bite	Good-faith exception applies because CSOSA reasonably relied on its regulation and thus acted in objectively reasonable reliance	Held: Good-faith exception does not apply; suppression affirmed
Whether CSOSA counts as a “neutral” third-party decisionmaker (like a judge or legislature) for good-faith purposes	CSOSA is not neutral; it is a law-enforcement agency whose incentives require deterrence via exclusion	Government contends CSOSA’s rulemaking and oversight processes make it more like a neutral actor and less susceptible to deterrence by suppression	Held: CSOSA is a law-enforcement agency, not a neutral decisionmaker; exclusion is an appropriate deterrent
Whether systemic or recurring agency errors can be treated like isolated, attenuated negligence (Herring) and thus avoid suppression	Agency’s repeated unilateral GPS program is systemic and therefore suppression is necessary	Government argues lack of individual culpability and that the rulemaking process limits deterrent value of exclusion	Held: Violations were systemic and directly connected to evidence recovery; Herring attenuation does not apply
Whether courts should adopt a broad rule excusing suppression whenever law enforcement’s belief was objectively reasonable	Excluding a broad “objectively reasonable” shield protects the Fourth Amendment from agency overreach	Government (and dissent) urge that objective reasonableness should often preclude suppression, especially for reasonable statutory/regulatory interpretations	Held: Court rejects a freestanding objective-reasonableness safe harbor that would swallow the exclusionary rule; good-faith precedents remain limited to reliance on detached or neutral decisionmakers or attenuated errors

Key Cases Cited

Davis v. United States, 306 A.3d 89 (D.C. 2023) (held CSOSA lacked statutory authority to unilaterally impose GPS monitoring)
United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984) (established good-faith exception where officers reasonably rely on a magistrate-issued warrant)
(W.G.) Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229 (2011) (applied good-faith exception where officers relied on binding appellate precedent)
Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135 (2009) (declined suppression for isolated, attenuated police negligence)
Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340 (1987) (held good-faith exception applies when officers reasonably rely on a statute later declared unconstitutional)
Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1 (1995) (applied good-faith exception where court employees’ clerical error misled police)
United States v. Jackson, 214 A.3d 464 (D.C. 2019) (discussed CSOSA’s GPS program and information sharing with MPD)
Atchison v. United States, 257 A.3d 524 (D.C. 2021) (addressed GPS monitoring under special-needs framework)
United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012) (recognized the Fourth Amendment privacy implications of prolonged GPS tracking)