GPS Units: Not Just for Driving Directions Anymore
November 20, 2009Officer Keith James of the Coronado Police Department’s Task Force spotted Vincent Franklin Bennett’s boat travelling north near the U.S.-Mexico border on January 27, 2000. Upon boarding Bennett’s boat in San Diego Bay the officers noticed that the registration information did not match the boat, that the boat was riding extremely low in the water and there was a new high performance in the boat which provided space which the officers could not account for. Also, after boarding the officers learned that there was a warrant out for Bennett’s arrest. Once Bennett was removed for questioning, the boat was searched and x-rayed for marijuana that was hidden on board. The x-raying resulted in 1,541.5 pounds of marijuana being found.
The district court denied Bennett’s motion to suppress the marijuana and convicted Bennett of importing marijuana and intending to distribute marijuana. Following his convictions, Bennett appealed in anyway humanly possible, since otherwise he would be spending over 10 lovely years in prison.
On Appeal, the Ninth Circuit found that Bennett’s boat was seized pursuant to a valid border search; therefore, his possession conviction was affirmed.
E-Discovery Controversy:
The issue of illegal importation centers around evidence obtained from a global positioning system (“GPS”) unit aboard Bennett’s boat. Illegal importation only occurs when a defendant imports a controlled substance into the United States from any place outside thereof. 21 U.S.C. § 952(a). Here, Bennett’s boat was clearly in U.S. waters when it was spotted by Officer James, therefore, the Government must show that Bennett came from Mexico with the marijuana onboard.
While searching Bennett’s boat, U.S. Customs Officer Malcolm McCloud Chandler claimed that he found a GPS that revealed Bennett had traveled from Mexican waters into San Diego Bay. This particular device came with a “backtrack” feature, which allowed a user to view the boat’s journey from that day. Chandler testified that while he did not take the GPS device into possession or log any of the information from the device that using the backtrack feature he was able to see that Bennett had come from waters off the coast of Mexico to the U.S.
Bennett objected to the use of this evidence under the best evidence rule, which provides that in the case of data stored on a computer or similar device that a printout or other output readable by sight must be presented to prove the contents of the device. Fed. R. Evid. 1001(3). The district overruled Bennett’s objection.
Here, the Ninth Circuit found that the best evidence rule does apply because Chandler was testifying about the contents contained within the GPS unit since he never actually saw Bennett’s boat travel this path. Thus, since the Government failed to produce the GPS unit, a printout, or other representation from the GPS unit and did not provide any reason for why it would have been difficult to do so the testimony of Chandler regarding the GPS unit is inadmissible. As a result, the Court decided that Bennett was prejudiced by the erroneous admission of the GPS testimony and no other evidence was available to support a conviction of importation against Bennett.
Courtney is a graduate from UCLA and has since graduated from Seton Hall Law School with a concentration in intellectual property law.
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Couldn’t the officer have used a digital still or video camera to record what was on the screen of the GPS.
Wouldn’t this prevent having to deal with removing devices that may be permanently mounted in a vehicle, or otherwise?
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Frank [eLL Editor-in-Chief] Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 12:11 PM
@Ron,
That’s an excellent suggestion, and easy enough to do considering most everyone these days carries a phone with some sort of camera built-in. Since they were out at sea, they may not have been carrying such devices, but as the article points out, no such reasons were given.
Of course, even photos can be fabricated, and the burden would still be on the prosecutor to prove the legitimacy of the digital media, but at least then it would be more than just “he said, she said” testimony.
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