## Facts

- Torrey Dale Grady was twice convicted of sex offenses in North Carolina (1997 and 2006).
- After completing his sentence for the 2006 offense, the State sought to place him in a satellite-based monitoring (SBM) program as a “recidivist sex offender” under North Carolina law.
- A state trial court ordered Grady to enroll in SBM for life.
- SBM required Grady to wear a tracking device on his body at all times, allowing continuous monitoring of his location.
- Grady objected that forcing him to wear the device and tracking his movements without consent violated the Fourth Amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether requiring a person, without consent, to wear a satellite-based tracking device on the body to monitor movements constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment.
2. If it is a search, whether lifetime SBM is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court (per curiam) held that attaching a monitoring device to a person’s body, without consent, to track movements is a Fourth Amendment search.
- The Court rejected the view that the civil label of SBM proceedings removes the program from Fourth Amendment scrutiny.
- The Court did not decide whether the search was reasonable.
- The Court vacated the judgment and remanded for the state courts to determine reasonableness under the totality of the circumstances.

## Legal Principles

- A physical intrusion to obtain information—such as attaching a tracking device—triggers the Fourth Amendment as a search.
- The Fourth Amendment applies outside criminal investigations; government collection methods in civil regulatory programs can still constitute searches.
- Whether a search violates the Fourth Amendment depends on reasonableness, assessed under the totality of the circumstances, including the search’s nature and purpose and the degree of intrusion on reasonable privacy expectations.

## Conclusion

Compulsory satellite-based monitoring that requires a person to wear a tracking device on the body is a Fourth Amendment search, and courts must separately evaluate whether such monitoring is reasonable before it may be upheld.


Grady v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368 (2015)