Reactions to Jones v. United States: The government fared much better than everyone realizes
Tom Goldstein SCOTUSblog January 23, 2012
Below, Lyle recaps and analyzes the Court's opinion. Given the significance of the decision and the uncertainty about its precise holding, I thought I would add a few thoughts.
I think that the correct way to understand the case is to read it as having two separate majority opinions. This odd alignment occurs because Justice Sotomayor agrees with both theories: she agrees with the majority "at a minimum" (Sotomayor op. at 1) and also seemingly agrees with the concurrence's "incisive" conclusions (id. at 3). Justice Sotomayor does not formally join the Alito opinion, but her sympathy for its finding of a Fourth Amendment "search" in GPS monitoring is fairly obvious, as she expresses a broader view of privacy than any other member of the Court.
...