*1 Pending before the Court is defendant Gerry Duane Burnett's second motion to suppress the evidence recovered, on March 1, 2012, during the execution of a search warrant at 1707 D Street, S.E., Washington, D.C., where the defendant resided with his girlfriend.[1] Def.’s Mot. to Suppress Evidence Obtained Via Warrantless GPS Monitoring (“Def's Mot.”), ECF No. 128, at 1.[2] This Court earlier denied the defendant's first suppression motion, which challenged the validity of the same search warrant on grounds that the warrant “thoroughly lacked probable cause” and contained stale information making reliance on it “objectively unreasonable.” See Minute Order (Nov. 30, 2012). In support of this second motion to suppress, defendant Burnett posits the new ground that the search warrant was invalid because it was based, in part, upon Global Position System (“GPS”) tracking information obtained, pursuant to court-authorized warrants, for a cellular telephone being used by an alleged coconspirator, Eugene Reginald McDuffie, while McDuffie was inside the defendant's residence. Def.’s Mot. at 1, 4.[3] Specifically, defendant Burnett maintains that tracking inside his residence violated his Fourth Amendment rights under United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 104 S.Ct. 3296, 82 L.Ed.2d 530 (1984), because he had a reasonable expectation of privacy inside the residence. Id. Consequently, he moves to suppress the evidence obtained during the execution of the warrant as “tainted fruits of the poisonous tree.” Id. at 4-5. For the reasons explained below, this motion will be denied.

I. Factual Background

*2 The facts pertinent to the pending motion are summarized below. As part of an investigation of narcotics trafficking by McDuffie and others, on August 25, 2011, a Magistrate Judge issued an order authorizing the seizure of GPS locator information and real-time cell site data for McDuffie's cellular telephone. Government's Mem. in Opp'n to Def. Gerry Burnett's Mot. to Suppress Tangible Evidence (“Government's Mem.”), ECF No. 121, at 3. Another five warrants were subsequently issued “authorizing the continued use of GPS locator information and real-time cell site data on [McDuffie's cellular] phone.”[4] Id. Information obtained from these warrants was incorporated into a 24-page affidavit submitted in support of the application for the search warrant for 1707 D Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. and, on February 27, 2012, a Magistrate Judge issued a search warrant for those premises. See Affidavit in Supp. of Search Warrant (“Aff”), Ex. B to Def.’s Mem. in Supp. of Mot. to Suppress Physical Evidence and Controvert Search Warrant, ECF No. 41.

On March 1, 2012, law enforcement officers executed the search warrant and recovered, among other things, quantities of heroin and marijuana, as well as multiple digital scales. Def.’s Mot. at 1; Government's Mem. at 2–3.

II. Legal Standard

“When police obtain evidence by way of an unlawful search, the exclusionary rule may require exclusion of that evidence in some circumstances.” United States v. Glover, 681 F.3d 411, 418 (D.C. Cir. 2012). When, however, a search warrant authorizes the search, the “exclusionary rule has limited force.” Id. The D.C. Circuit explained in Glover that “reviewing courts may not exclude evidence ‘when an officer acting with objective good faith has obtained a search warrant from a judge or magistrate and acted within its scope.’ ” Id. (quoting United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 920, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984)).

The Leon “good faith” exception is not an impenetrable protective cloak over a search, however. As another Judge on this Court recently explained: “The Supreme Court has limited application of the Leon ‘good faith’ exception and suppression of evidence remains an appropriate remedy” in four circumstances: namely, where:

United States v. Savoy, 889 F.Supp.2d 78, (D.D.C. 2012) (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 923, 104 S.Ct. 3405).

The defendant invokes only the third exception to the Leon “good faith” rule, challenging the “validity of the search warrant,” because “the warrant application relied upon GPS monitoring on co-defendant Eugene Reggie McDuffie[’s] telephone ... which constituted an illegal search” of the defendant's residence whenever the telephone was in use inside his residence. Def.’s Mot. at 1.

*3 In evaluating the validity of the search warrant at issue here, with or without the challenged GPS tracking data, the Court examines whether the affidavit set forth facts “sufficient to induce a reasonably prudent person to believe that a search thereof will uncover evidence of a crime.” United States v. Laws, 808 F.2d 92, 94 (D.C. Cir. 1986). “The task of a judicial officer from whom a search warrant is requested is to make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him [or her], including the veracity and basis of knowledge of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.” United States v. Thomas, 989 F.2d 1252, 1254 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) (“reaffirm[ing] the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that traditionally has informed probable-cause determinations”). “Thus, a probable cause determination encompasses both the probability that criminal activity is afoot, as well as a nexus between that activity and the place to be searched. Additionally, probable cause may not be based on mere allegations or conclusory statements.” Savoy, 889 F.Supp.2d 78, 85.

Moreover, the “magistrate's decision [to issue a warrant] is owed great deference by reviewing courts.” Id. at *11. “The reviewing court will not make a de novo determination of probable cause, but will uphold the decision to issue the warrant if it is supported by substantial evidence.” Thomas, 989 F.2d at 1254. “[S]o long as the magistrate had a substantial basis for ... conclud[ing] that a search would uncover evidence of wrongdoing, the Fourth Amendment requires no more.” Savoy, 889 F.Supp.2d 78, 87 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

III. Discussion

Defendant Burnett's second challenge to the search warrant for his residence will be denied for two reasons: (1) assuming that defendant Burnett has standing to challenge the government's tracking of another person's cellular telephone when the tracking “crosses the threshold of his home,” Def.’s Reply Mem. at 3, the Court-issued warrants authorized the use of GPS tracking information from McDuffie's cellular telephone without any territorial limitation and therefore covered both public and private spaces; and (2) even without the challenged GPS tracking data from McDuffie's cellular telephone, the government still had sufficient evidence to establish probable cause to search defendant Burnett's residence.[5]

A. The Seizure of GPS Tracking Information Was Authorized Wherever the Target Telephone Was Located

Defendant Burnett concedes that he lacks standing to challenge the government's tracking of another person's cellular phone in public spaces or “outside Burnett's home.” Def.’s Reply Mem. at 3. He distinguishes such electronic monitoring, however, when it occurs in a private home and claims that when “the tracking of McDuffie's phone intruded into his private dwelling ... it was an unconstitutional search under the Fourth Amendment,” and that he has standing to challenge any evidence obtained from a search predicated on this unconstitutional evidence. Id. In short, defendant Burnett argues that his own constitutional rights were violated when law enforcement continued to track McDuffie's cellular telephone after McDuffie entered his residence. See Def.’s Mot. at 4. The Court will assume that this defendant has standing to challenge the use of GPS tracking data from McDuffie's cellular telephone when that telephone was inside the defendant's home.[6] This suppression motion is nonetheless unavailing.

*4 The GPS tracking information was properly obtained through Court-issued warrants based on probable cause, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41. The defendant does not dispute that these warrants contained no territorial limitation and therefore did not restrict the collection or seizure of the GPS tracking data to times when McDuffie was in public places. On the contrary, the warrants authorized federal agents to “obtain the Requested Location Information concerning the target telephone ... [at] any time of the day or night as required,” and “expressly limited” the authorization “to ascertaining the physical location of the target telephone and expressly excluding the contents of any communications conducted by the user(s) of the target telephone.” Government's Mem. at 7.

The defendant Burnett does not address the scope of the warrants for collection of GPS tracking data, but those warrants implicitly authorize continued seizure of the tracking data when the telephone was located inside private residences. Instead, he cites several cases holding merely that conducting electronic surveillance in a private home implicates the Fourth Amendment and requires a warrant. For example, the defendant relies on United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 714, 104 S.Ct. 3296, 82 L.Ed.2d 530 (1984), in which the Supreme Court concluded that the warrantless use of a beeper device in a private residence implicated an individual's Fourth Amendment rights, and United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 132 S. Ct. 945, 949–54, 181 L.Ed.2d 911 (2012), where the Supreme Court found that a GPS monitoring device attached to a vehicle constitutes a “search,” which requires a valid warrant. These cases are inapposite here. Unlike the surveillance at issue in Karo and Jones, the GPS tracking data from McDuffie's cellular telephone was seized pursuant to validly issued warrants. See United States v. Bailey, 628 F.2d 938, 947 (6th Cir. 1980) (“Where beeper surveillance would violate an individual's legitimate expectations of privacy, the Government needs only to obtain a valid warrant containing a reasonable time limit in order to comply with the requirements of the [F]ourth [A]mendment”); United States v. Lewis, 621 F.2d 1382, 1385, 1388-89 (5th Cir. 1980) (upholding the validity of search warrants for a farm which was located after DEA agents placed a beeper into a chemical drum and received warrant authorization to track the beeper to the location used by the defendants). Thus, the seizure and use of GPS tracking data from McDuffie's cellular telephone was not violative of defendant Burnett's Fourth Amendment rights, even if that data was collected while the cellular telephone was inside the defendant's home.

B. Even Without the GPS Evidence, the Government Had Sufficient Evidence to Establish Probable Cause to Search the Residence

Even if the seizure of GPS tracking data from McDuffie's cellular telephone were found to be violative of defendant Burnett's Fourth Amendment rights, the government still had ample evidence to establish probable cause to search the residence at 1707 D Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. Consequently, the validity of the warrant remains intact and the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant is not subject to suppression.

The affidavit in support of a search warrant for defendant Burnett's residence describes statements and actions of McDuffie, who is an alleged co-conspirator in the alleged narcotics conspiracy, that, in combination with cellular telephone calling records, agents’ visual surveillance, and GPS tracking of McDuffie's vehicle, point directly to Mr. Burnett and the use of his residence at 1707 D Street, S.E., for narcotics trafficking. See Aff., ECF No. 41, at 28-53. Specifically, the affidavit provides the following factual information supporting probable cause:

Clearly, “observations of illegal activity occurring away from the suspect's residence, can support a finding of probable cause to issue a search warrant for the residence, if there is a reasonable basis to infer from the nature of the illegal activity observed, that relevant evidence will be found in the residence.” Thomas, 989 F.2d at 1255. These facts, and the others set forth in the affidavit in support of the search warrant, clearly established probable cause justifying issuance of the warrant, even without use of the GPS tracking data from McDuffie's cellular telephone. See Glover, 681 F.3d at 418 (even if initial entry into premises was unlawful, the affidavit for the search warrant did not rely on what the officers observed during that entry and, thus, the entry cannot be used “as the hook to suppress evidence later seized pursuant to a valid and independently obtained search warrant.”) (citing Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 126 S.Ct. 2159, 165 L.Ed.2d 56 (2006); Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 108 S.Ct. 2529, 101 L.Ed.2d 472 (1988)).

*6 Accordingly, it is hereby

ORDERED that Defendant Burnett's Motion to Suppress Evidence Obtained Via Warrantless GPS Monitoring of 1707 D Street, S.E., Washington, D.C., ECF No. 128, is DENIED.

SO ORDERED.