Federal Judge Mulls Prosecutor Sanctions Over DEA Agent's Concealment of GPS Monitoring
A federal judge in Iowa is pondering possible sanctions on prosecutors in a narcotics case after learning that a Drug Enforcement Administration agent didn’t reveal in investigative reports that GPS monitoring was being used on vehicles related to then-suspect Angel Amaya.
U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett said DEA policy required agent David Jensen to reveal the tracking in his reports. Instead, Jensen referred to what “surveillance showed,” the Associated Press reports.
The claimed concealment of the GPS tracking information resulted in a mistrial in Amaya’s case in December when his lawyer learned of it and complained that he hadn’t been told earlier.
Bennett plans to hold an April 30 hearing to determine whether prosecutors should be sanctioned for the discovery violation. Among possible penalties are limiting their power to select jurors and eliminating their closing argument, the article says.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Supreme Court Rules Attaching GPS Device to Car Is a Search; Case Is ‘Big Loss’ for U.S.”
