Back in 2012, the US Supreme Court declared it was illegal for law enforcement to attach a GPS tracker to a suspect’s car without first getting a warrant. But in 2018, cops in Indiana charged a suspected drug dealer with theft after he removed such a tracking device from his SUV, triggering a legal debate over whether you can legally remove such devices.

As it turns out, you most assuredly can.

A new unanimous ruling from the Indiana Supreme Court has declared that the suspect in question did not “steal” the government-owned device, and that law enforcement should have known better before bringing the charges.

The case started back in July of 2018, when the Warrick County, Indiana Sheriff's Office obtained a warrant to attach a GPS tracking device to an SUV belonging to Derek Heuring, after receiving a tip from a confidential information who claimed he used the vehicle to sell meth.

While the attached device delivered Heuring’s location data to police for around a week, it stopped transmitting shortly thereafter—leading police to suspect it had been removed. Police waited another 10 days to see if the device would start transmitting again, then applied for a new search warrant to search both Heuring and his parents’ homes.

Under US law, law enforcement has to show probable cause that a crime has been committed before performing a property search. In Heuring’s case, police declared that the probable cause was the suspicion that Heuring had committed a crime by removing the device, something the court was skeptical of from the start.

"I'm really struggling with how is that theft," Justice Steven David stated during oral arguments last November.

Once they raided Heuring’s home, police discovered methamphetamine and paraphernalia, and shortly thereafter charged him with drug dealing and theft of the GPS device.