UNITED STATES оf America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Cory S. CASTETTER, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 17-1327
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
August 4, 2017
Argued June 2, 2017
977, 978, 979
Far from being “woеfully insufficient,” when we view this evidence (along with the rest of the government‘s evidence) in the light most favorable to the government, we think it‘s clear that Neeley supplied the methamphetamine that killed Jessie. Neeley‘s arguments to the contrary are unavailing.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the distriсt court‘s judgments of conviction regarding defendants-appellants Maggard, Bell, Jackson, and Neeley.
Donald C. Swanson, Jr., Andrew L. Teel, Attorney, HALLER & COLVIN PC, Fort Wayne, IN, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before FLAUM, EASTERBROOK, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.
EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.
With the authority of a warrant, see United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 132 S.Ct. 945, 181 L.Ed.2d 911 (2012), police installed and monitored a GPS locator on a car owned and driven by Mark Holst. They were investigating Holst‘s participation in mеthamphetamine sales and wanted to know, among other things, where he was getting the drug. The GPS device had the ability to transmit data so that the car cоuld be traced in real time. Police tracked Holst‘s car on September 4, 2014, and learned that it had stopped at a particular place for more than an hour. An informant told the police that Holst had traveled to buy methamphetamine. Police stopped Holst‘s car as he was driving home and found some of that drug. They relayed the information to other officers, who applied for a warrant to search the house in whоse driveway Holst‘s car had lingered. That house turned out to be Cory Castetter‘s. The search turned up methamphetamine, other drugs, and approximаtely $62,000 in cash.
Prosecuted under federal law,
The problem with Castetter‘s principal argument is that the Fourth Amendment does not concern state borders. It reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable seаrches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particulаrly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Nothing there about state lines. The Constitution demands that a warrаnt be supported by probable cause, an oath, and particularity. As we have already mentioned Castetter does not deny that these requirements were satisfied.
States may decide as a matter of domestic law not to authorize their police to acquire information extrаterritorially, but federal courts do not use the exclusionary rule to enforce state-law doctrines. See
Information about Holst‘s driving (and stopping) went by radio to a receiver connected to the Internet. We do not know the receiver‘s location (it may have been a satellite or a cell-data node), but the Internet transcends state borders-аnd the GPS satellites, all launched and operated by the U.S. Air Force, are in orbit 12,540 miles high, well beyond any state‘s domain. The process of tracking a сar‘s location by GPS does not offend any state‘s sovereign rights; this prosecution cannot founder on the theory that the drug laws, or the GPS system, exceed the national power to legislate, regulate, or investigate. Compare Bond v. United States, — U.S. —, 134 S.Ct. 2077, 189 L.Ed.2d 1 (2014), with Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005). The national government, not any state, regulates radio, interstаte computer networks, and the GPS system.
Castetter‘s fallback argument is equally weak. True, the first warrant was not based on information about Castetter. But neither did it authorize anyone to learn about the inside of his home, as the infrared device did in Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001). All the police learned by monitoring the GPS device was the location of Holst‘s car, and Castetter lacked a privacy interest in that location.
Suppose that instead of getting a warrant to track Holst‘s car, police had persuaded him to become an informant and report what happened inside Castetter‘s house. Suppоse, indeed, that Holst had agreed to wear a camera and an audio recorder, providing many facts about Castetter‘s house and comprehensive details about the transaction. That would not have violated any of Castetter‘s rights. See, e.g., Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 408, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966). Or suppose Castetter had given Holst dоcuments revealing specifics of his drug operations, and the police later had stopped Holst without either probable cause оr a warrant. Castetter could not object, because the privacy invaded would have been Holst‘s rather than Castetter‘s. See United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727, 100 S.Ct. 2439, 65 L.Ed.2d 468 (1980); Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980). But the poliсe did none of these things. They obtained a location-tracking warrant and learned no more than where Holst had driven his car. The Constitution is not offended if, by executing a warrant to search one person (such as Holst), police learn incriminating details about another (such as Castetter).
AFFIRMED