Background
A joint task force of North Carolina, Virginia, and federal officers investigated Deshaun Marquist Graves for interstate narcotics trafficking. After confidential sources linked Graves and his Ford F-150 to cocaine and fentanyl distribution, a North Carolina superior court judge authorized officers to install a GPS device on the truck and monitor it for up to 90 days, including outside North Carolina. Officers installed the device in North Carolina and monitored the truck for 24 days.
GPS data, physical surveillance, and controlled purchases connected Graves to two Danville apartments. Searches of those apartments yielded marijuana, fentanyl, cocaine, and a firearm. Graves moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that Virginia officers needed a Virginia warrant, that the North Carolina warrant lacked probable cause and particularity, and that its 90-day authorization violated Virginia Code § 19.2-56.2. After the circuit court denied suppression, Graves entered conditional Alford pleas preserving the issue for appeal.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals held that the task force’s prolonged GPS monitoring constituted a Fourth Amendment search even though the device had been lawfully installed and the Virginia officers committed no separate physical trespass. Tracking every movement of Graves’s truck for 24 days revealed a detailed record of his habits and associations and therefore implicated a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The court nevertheless held that the search was constitutional. The North Carolina warrant was issued by an independent judge, rested on probable cause supported by corroborated informant information and a controlled buy, and particularly identified the truck and the authorized monitoring period. Virginia officers participating in the joint investigation could rely on that warrant when the truck crossed state lines because the Fourth Amendment does not impose state-border restrictions on GPS monitoring.
Assuming without deciding that Virginia Code § 19.2-56.2 applied, the court held that any statutory violation did not justify suppression. The statute contains no exclusionary remedy, and a violation of its 30-day limit would not itself establish a Fourth Amendment violation. The court therefore affirmed the denial of Graves’s suppression motion.
Key Takeaways
- Prolonged GPS monitoring can constitute a Fourth Amendment search even without an accompanying physical trespass.
- A constitutionally valid GPS warrant issued in one state may support monitoring by participating officers after the vehicle enters another state.
- Virginia Code § 19.2-56.2 provides no suppression remedy for a statutory violation absent an independent constitutional violation.
Why It Matters
The decision expressly recognizes a privacy interest in extended, continuous vehicle-location monitoring and distinguishes such surveillance from technology that captures only isolated public movements.
At the same time, it permits multistate task forces to rely on an out-of-state GPS warrant that satisfies the Fourth Amendment, while confirming that Virginia’s additional statutory safeguards do not automatically require exclusion of evidence.