United States v. Smith, No. 12-11042 (11th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed his conviction and 420-month sentence for, inter alia, conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine. The court concluded that when the officers in this case installed GPS trackers on defendant's vehicles without a warrant, they acted in reasonable reliance upon the court's then-binding precedent. Suppression of reliable, competent, and probative evidence was a last resort justified only where the benefits of deterrence outweigh the substantial social costs of exclusion. Therefore, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied in this case and the district court properly denied defendant's motion based on United States v. Jones. The court also rejected defendant's evidentiary claims. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and judgment.
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