Charlie Buttrey

December 6, 2019

If you discover a GPS tracking device on your car and then remove it, is that a theft?

The Indiana Supreme Court is about to tell us.

In 2018, the Warrick County (IN) Sheriff’s Office obtained a warrant to plant a GPS tracking device on the 1999 Ford Expedition owned by Derek Heuring, whom they suspected was using the vehicle to transport methamphetamine. After a few days, the tracker was not providing any readings, and so the officers decided they needed to retrieve it. When they looked under the car, parked outside Heuring’s residence, they saw it was gone. Contending that the missing tracker provided probable cause that it had been stolen, the sheriff’s office was able to get a warrant to search Heuring’s property, where they found methamphetamine and related paraphernalia. He was then arrested on drug charges.

That warrant, however, would only be valid if there was probable cause to believe that Heuring had stolen the device in the first place. Isn’t it at least equally plausible that it fell off, or ceased functioning? And since there was nothing on the device to indicate that it was owned by anyone, even if he removed it from the vehicle, how is that a theft?

The trial court denied Heuring’s motion to suppress, but the Indiana Supreme Court took the matter on interlocutory appeal. According to this article in the Indianapolis Journal-Gazette, the court seemed “downright skeptical” that the police had probable cause to obtain the search warrant.

The lesson here: if you are a police agency and put a GPS tracker on someone’s car, put your name and return address on the device.

© 2020 Charlie Buttrey Law by Nomad Communications