Melinda Winters
Criminal Procedure – Probable Cause Article Summary
Cja/364
University Of Phoenix
Professor Timijanel Boyd Odom
November 14, 2013

In a recent article in the Las Vegas Sun the Nevada police routinely track cell phone users without a warrant. According to "Las Vegas Sun" (2013), "Nevada law enforcement agencies have tracked the movements of citizens through their cellphones, sometimes without obtaining proper court approval, according to court records and documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada”. Last year a judged ruled that the Las Vegas police had improperly obtained the location of a murder suspect from his cell phone but allowed evidence gathered from the illegal tracking to be used at court ("Las Vegas Sun", 2013). Two police departments in Las Vegas routinely use cell phone records to track people involved in investigations and rarely without warrants. This act has become standard some obtain warrants but majority of the time they disregard. According to "Las Vegas Sun" (2013), "The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches by government. To obtain a search warrant, authorities have been required to show a judge enough evidence to establish probable cause”. Law enforcement agencies all over the country have been using cell phone tracking to investigate cases but have been keeping it a secret. The requirement for search and arrest warrants is that in order to be obtained the police must have probable cause. The police must also have probable cause to arrest without a warrant. If probable cause is non-existence the police cannot retain a warrant from a judge. Like any law in this country there are exceptions. One exception is voluntary consent. According to "Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement" (2007), "Consent is voluntarily acquiescing or complying with a request, by someone