Getting It Wrong On Cell Phone Searches

Read the article critiquing the Supreme Court's decision on using location data on cell phones to track robbery suspects. List the reasons the author list about why he believes the Court got this decision wrong. Then agree or disagree with the author's conclusions. Justify your decision either way. Use other sources if necessary to justify your decision, including the textbook.

Discussion Board 3 Supreme Court

For several reasons, Richard Epstein believes the US Supreme Court made a bad decision by raising the level of vagueness to the belligerent doctrine of warrantless searches concerning law execution's usage of cell phone data to scrutinize or investigate illegal activities. Richard contends that the decision on Carpenter's conviction is based on an exchange between both the police search's intrusiveness and the trustworthiness of the evidence acquired, which was not suitable. 

Richard further claims that the chief judge erred by interpreting the Fourth Amendment in a way that defies logic and that the endeavor to chase down Carpenter's movements did not warrant a Fourth Amendment seizure. Richard believes the investigation was excessive because a warrant is only required in emergencies. Surprisingly, the Chief Justice deemed it reasonable when probable cause got demonstrated. Furthermore, Richard maintains that the ruling is ambiguous because the 4th Amendment of the constitution draft employs the phrases "reasonable rather than probable cause. But despite this, the Supreme Court considers both as interchangeable.

Furthermore, Richard finds it strange to review or judge the search as appropriate since it employs outdated mechanical techniques to trace criminal activities' location instead of using developed modern technology. Unlike conventional searches, believing there's no possibility of false or falsified evidence mistakenly putting Carpenter at the crime scene.

I agree with Richard that the Supreme Court made the erroneous conclusion because the cellphone and the individual have a limited legal link with the above insights. I further feel that somebody's phone is intercepting on a particular site at a set period does not mean the person was physically there, or even if the person happened to be present and involved in the behaviors of concern. Carpenter may have monitored the guilty parties to investigate if they were up to anything, or the phone could have been snatched and only carried with the actual perpetrators. To that aim, someone may implicate someone by merely taking their cellphone on an unlawful excursion and then using the cellphone data to establish cooperation.