WASHINGTON — A Kaua‘i native who prepared oral arguments for the U.S. Supreme Court last November was very pleased to see a unanimous decision in his favor on Monday. Micah Smith, 30, who graduated in 1999 from Kaua‘i High School,
WASHINGTON — A Kaua‘i native who prepared oral arguments for the U.S. Supreme Court last November was very pleased to see a unanimous decision in his favor on Monday.
Micah Smith, 30, who graduated in 1999 from Kaua‘i High School, is an associate attorney specializing in appellate practice with the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C.
Last November, Smith was the principal author of the respondent’s merits brief for U.S. v. Antoine Jones, a Supreme Court case that challenged law enforcement use of GPS tracking devices to monitor vehicle movement without notification.
Smith and his colleague Walter Dellinger helped prepare attorney Stephen Leckar for the oral argument. They did not know the fate of the case until the 9-0 vote in favor of the defendant announced Monday.
“We simply waited and hoped for the best, since it was out of our hands at that point,” Smith said. “But we’re very pleased with the result.”
In his brief, Smith notes that Hawai‘i and other state legislatures recognized as early as 2007 the potential dangers of allowing law enforcement agencies to use GPS technology without restraint. He notes that California explicitly recognized a reasonable expectation of privacy against surreptitious GPS surveillance.
“The court recognized — as the Hawai‘i legislature recognized several years ago — that if law enforcement officers want to track a person’s every movement over the course of an entire month, they should get a warrant,” said Smith.
Smith said the firm did not ask the court, and the court did not hold, that law enforcement may not use GPS devices to fight crime. The court merely held that law enforcement cannot install and use GPS devices when there’s no excuse for doing so, he explained.
“It was important to obtain a victory for their client,” Smith said, adding that it was also a victory for privacy and property rights and “vindication of the federal Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.”
The 2004 District of Columbia case involves the vehicle of Antoine Jones, a Maryland club owner. Local law enforcement officers placed a GPS surveillance device on his car, which sent continuous location information.
Jones appealed the case based on unconstitutional search laws and a reasonable expectation of privacy. He was convicted at a second trial on conspiracy to sell cocaine.
Smith said the appeal argued against warrantless use of a GPS tracking device to monitor movement on public streets as a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Smith attended Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania, and earned his juris doctorate from Harvard University in 2006. He graduated magna cum laude and was a sections editor and co-chair of the Harvard Law Review.
His first legal job was doing pro bono work for the Legal Aid Society of Hawai‘i during summer breaks from law school. He worked with Gregory Meyers and Emiko Ryan Meyers at the Kaua‘i office.
Smith’s wife Tiana is also from Kaua‘i.
• Tom LaVenture, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or tlaventure@ thegardenisland.com.
