575 U.S. 306 (2015)
Strapping a GPS monitor to a person is a Fourth Amendment search, even when the state calls the program civil.
Good law. Still followed. Later cases may have narrowed it — see Scope. Binds every court in the country on the federal question it decides.
Torrey Dale Grady had two prior sex offense convictions. As a recidivist, North Carolina ordered him into lifetime satellite-based monitoring, requiring him to wear a tracking device at all times. State courts rejected his Fourth Amendment challenge because the program was civil.
In a unanimous unsigned opinion, the Court held that a state conducts a search when it attaches a device to a person’s body, without consent, to track their movements. The civil label does not change that. The case was sent back.
Grady means monitoring programs must be justified as reasonable searches, with courts weighing the state’s interest against the intrusion. That opened the door to challenges to lifetime monitoring of people no longer on supervision.
The Court expressly did not decide whether the monitoring was unreasonable, and so unconstitutional. It left that totality-of-the-circumstances question to the state courts.
Last verified against the sources above on September 30, 2026.
These are plain-language summaries of court decisions, written for general education. A ruling binds only the courts beneath the court that issued it, later decisions and new laws can change what it means, and how it applies to any one person depends on facts a summary cannot capture. Read the opinion itself, and talk to a lawyer licensed in your state before relying on any case. This page is not legal advice.