Judges uphold denial of motion to suppress on rehearing

The Indiana Court of Appeals, after clarifying a point in their original opinion, still did not believe that a police detective tried to mislead a judge in order to obtain a search warrant. The judges upheld their original decision that affirmed the denial of a man’s motion to suppress evidence collected at his home following drug deals.

Victor Keeylen sold drugs to police officers through controlled buys. Those officers received authorization from the court to place GPS tracking devices on his vehicles. Police continued to track his car after authority to do so expired. They applied for a warrant to search Keeylen’s residence but left out the fact police had used GPS tracking devices.

The COA in August held that the warrantless installation of the GPS devices was improper but upheld the denial to suppress evidence of heroin, cash, paraphernalia and a shotgun. Keeylen had argued that the warrant for the search of his home was predicated on a probable cause affidavit that contained omissions that misled the court.

In the original opinion, Judge Paul Mathias wrote that the detective submitted the probable cause affidavit to the very same trial court and trial judge who had been authorizing the GPS searches for more than a year. The judges believed it was unlikely the detective, Ryan Graber, thought that the omission of his information would mislead the judge.

In this petition for rehearing, Keelyen maintains that the judicial officer who issued the search warrant did not issue all of the orders authorizing GPS tracking. But the commissioner who issued the warrant did issue the final order authorizing the GPS tracking, the judges pointed out Thursday in Victor Keeylen v. State of Indiana, 49A05-1308-CR-419. In addition, the last four authorization orders were issued by the very same court.

“The point we made in our original opinion remains valid: it is unlikely that Detective Graber was attempting to mislead the judicial officer issuing the search warrant by omitting information regarding the GPS tracking because the same judicial officer who issued the search warrant had previously authorized the GPS tracking and was thus well aware of the GPS tracking,” Mathias wrote.