United States v. Damian Patrick

This case raises serious issues about the use of cell-site simulators to track down the location of a target person. That is how police found Damian Patrick, for whom an arrest warrant had been issued for parole violations. My colleagues see no serious Fourth Amendment issues in Patrick’s case, because they believe that a defendant *546has no interest in the manner in which a warrant is executed. They also question whether the use of a cell-site simulator is a “search” at all, noting that Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 99 S.Ct. 2577, 61 L.Ed.2d 220 (1979), holds that the use of a pen register…