Grady v. North Carolina

The Supreme Court will not examine the issue of whether North Carolina's satellite based monitoring is an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment when the State's appellate courts did not first examine the reasonableness of the search.

Petitioner was subject to satellite based monitoring (SBM) as a recidivist sex offender after serving his second sentence for sex offenses. Petitioner agreed that he is a recidivist sex offender under the North Carolina statute, but argued that SBM violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches. The trial court disagreed and subjected petitioner to SBM for the rest of his life. In light of the the United States Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Jones, which held GPS tracking of a vehicle to be a search, petitioner renewed his Fourth Amendment challenge to SBM.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals rejected petitioner’s argument, and held that a civil SBM proceeding was readily distinguishable from the suppression of evidence issue in Jones. Petitioner appealed, and the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the North Carolina Court of Appeals.