Sullivan and White are scheduled for hearings today in Franklin County Common Pleas Court after asking to be released on bond while their cases are decided.
The two have been locked up since their arrests in a series of armed residential break-ins in January 2010. From the beginning, defense attorneys have argued that tracking the pair by placing a GPS device on Sullivan�s white Honda Civic without obtaining a warrant was a violation of their rights to privacy and Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures.
The judges ruled separately in 2011 that the use of the GPS didn�t require a warrant. Holbrook wrote then that �a reasonable expectation of privacy� does not exist for those parking and traveling on public roads. A Franklin County deputy sheriff placed the device on the car in a public parking lot, and investigators used it to track the car in public.
But the Supreme Court rejected that argument in ruling in an unrelated case, United States v. Jones, in January 2012. The justices unanimously found that placing a GPS device on a suspect�s vehicle and tracking it constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment.
Defense attorneys asked Holbrook and Martin to reconsider their rulings in light of the Supreme Court decision.
Holbrook�s reversal this week wasn�t as sweeping as Martin�s. Holbrook didn�t suppress any evidence against White because he didn�t own the car being tracked by the GPS device. He also didn�t suppress any of the evidence collected from Sullivan�s car because a warrant was obtained for that search.
�We�ve been in frequent contact with Ron O�Brien�s office on the appeal issue,� he said.