The Supreme Court of Georgia has ruled out that electronic automobile information retrieval from any electronic information recording device without a proper warrant at a deadly collision scene was search & seizure which implicates Fourth Amendment.
The court further went ahead to hold such data retrieval as unreasonable search & seizure which is forbidden by Fourth Amendment. It further held that the State did not identify any sort of recognized exception for warranting requirement applicable for facts. Hence, the trial court then should have allowed ‘motion to suppress,’ as per the court. And as such, the Court of Appeal’s judgment of affirming conviction of defendant in case of vehicular homicide had been reversed.
As per previous reports, the defendant has been convicted for vehicular homicide on the basis of evidence retrieved through his car’s electronic data which revealed that he drove at high speed before the accident. At the time, the defendent had appealed the trial court’s decision which refused his ‘motion to suppress’ the evidence of data that officials retrieved without any warrant from electronic information recording device present on his car.
As such, the latest decision is a significant follow-up of the guidance issued by Supreme Court when it comes to digital privacy.
