When the Georgia Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a law allowing convicted sex offenders to be ordered to wear GPS ankle monitors for the rest of their lives after release from prison, several justices offered a concurring opinion saying the Legislature could write a law requiring such monitoring that would pass constitutional muster. Full Article
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And the madness continues —
Ok, so who’s turn is it for reelection this time then?
Finding ways to circumvent the Constitution. Why don’t we just throw it out the window then and be done with it. Will save a lot of these idiots time.
I was on GPS monitoring when I was on bail. The stupid thing did not work half the time. I had the one that you had to lug around this huge transmitter. Must of weighed 10 pounds. The Pre-Trial Director initiated a court hearing for me (not my attorney) to go before the judge and speak on my behalf that this unit hindered my life so I could not even get a job. Judge agreed and put me on the lesser GPS unit. This one did not work any better but at least I barely knew I was wearing it. Odd part was that the Pre-Trial Director looked out for me much more than my own attorney. Yes, he was a public defender. How sad is that?!
The good news is that the very policies forced on SO’s will prevent this from ever happening. It was tried in California around 2006. Some low IQ, uninspired politicians thought it would give them some recognition. GPS monitoring costs several hundred dollars a month per person times around 100,000 people. But since the majority of people entering the registry will be unable to fine employment due to Meghan’s law and the many inhibiting rules then the state will have to foot the bill. As well, it would require massive staffing to monitor that many people round the clock, and since many thousands of registrants can’t find housing due to the oppressive restrictions, and they won’t be able to keep the GPS charged by no fault of their own then it would create a logistical nightmare.
Eventually a rough estimate of around $100 million a year of tax payer money was disclosed to the public to fund this idioicy and then the petition was quickly removed form the ballot and faded into anonymity. That was about 15 years ago. The registry continues to explode exponentially. A female friend said she recently looked online to see where all the SO’s lived. She said the map was nothing but red dots everywhere. Law enforcement has no way of knowing who actually lives anywhere anymore. And they even admit that the registry is so bloated that they can’t keep track of the few that are a real threat. More laws, more restrictions, more cost, more punishment, and yet statistic show that although people on the registry rarely reoffend, the rate of new offenses hasn’t decreased at all. Let those that have paid their debt to society rejoin the community so law enforcement can focus on real criminals.
Yes, ladies and gents, attorneys look at this and start to salivate on the potential case which is forming in the hands of the legislators currently…..
And so starts the possible march (if passed and signed into law) to SCOTUS and a ruling on the entire topic, i.e. agree to hear it or not and if they do, will it be allowed or not?, if challenged.
IMO, if you cannot attach a GPS to a car, US v Jones (2012), SCOTUS, without a warrant since it is considered a search, the human is in the same vein for movement tracking via a search without a warrant. Same is said for cellphone signals, Carpenter v US (2018), SCOTUS, and tracking of movement. There was a time when humans would walk everywhere, so my analogy is all movement regardless of method, e.g. car, horse, bicycle, scooter, boat, skateboard, roller skates, etc, cannot be electronically tracked by any method without a warrant.
Again, this comes down to using the data for what purpose and why does a human differ than a machine, i.e. a GPS tracker on a car or a cellphone with GPS on?