By MES Dispatch Staff
The Briefing
- U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill ruled Oct. 1 that a Tulsa County, Oklahoma, deputy violated the Fourth Amendment by searching a month of a woman’s travel history through license plate reader databases without a warrant.
- Hill granted a motion to suppress evidence in the federal drug case against Melisa Susan Kyle, who faces charges of possessing more than 500 grams of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.
- The judge found Deputy Freddie Alaniz began following Kyle’s rental vehicle with no apparent reason other than its California license plate, then queried Flock and VehicleManager databases, retrieving more than 50 location records across multiple states spanning a month.
- Citing Supreme Court precedent including Carpenter v. United States, Hill ruled that police cannot use a network of cameras to indiscriminately collect vehicle data and then retrieve a person’s detailed movement history without probable cause and a warrant.
- Hill upheld the initial traffic stop but found Alaniz lacked reasonable suspicion to extend it into a drug investigation; the ruling does not bar all license plate reader use, applying specifically to historical, multistate searches of the kind conducted in this case.
TULSA, Okla. — A federal judge has ruled that a Tulsa County sheriff’s deputy violated the Fourth Amendment by conducting a warrantless search of license plate reader databases covering a month of a woman’s travel history, according to the Dallas Express.
U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill granted a motion Oct. 1 to suppress evidence in the case against Melisa Susan Kyle, who faces federal charges of possessing more than 500 grams of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.
Hill wrote that Deputy Freddie Alaniz began following Kyle’s rental vehicle with “no apparent reason other than” its California license plate. Alaniz then queried the Flock and VehicleManager databases, which returned more than 50 location records from multiple states covering an entire month, according to the ruling. He subsequently stopped the vehicle.
The government argued that drivers have no reasonable expectation of privacy in license plates or movements visible on public roads. Hill disagreed, citing Supreme Court precedent including Carpenter v. United States, according to CBS 12. She wrote that police cannot “use a vast network of cameras to indiscriminately collect vehicle data, then retrieve a detailed history of a person’s movements on demand without probable cause and a warrant.”
The judge found that Kyle had a reasonable expectation of privacy in “the whole of her physical movements,” noting that such data can reveal sensitive information, including visits to medical providers, lawyers, fertility clinics, casinos or liquor stores.
According to CBS 12, the ruling does not bar all license plate reader use or individual camera scans; it addresses historical, multistate searches covering roughly a month. Hill upheld the initial traffic stop but found Alaniz lacked reasonable suspicion to extend it into a drug investigation.