Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Peterson defense objects to use of GPS technology

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 23:59:56 -0500

Peterson defense objects to use of GPS technology

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP)

February 11, 2004

Defense lawyer Mark Geragos will try to convince the judge
in the Scott Peterson double-murder case Wednesday that
global positioning technology is inaccurate and unreliable.
Legal experts said he faces an uphill battle, since the technology has been
in use for many years by airline pilots and even hikers to pinpoint
locations to within a few feet, using signals bounced off satellites.

Geragos has said his client was tracked by Global Positioning System devices
placed by authorities in vehicles he drove after his wife, Laci, disappeared
on Christmas Eve in 2002. Geragos wants all the GPS tracking evidence
excluded from the trial.

"The GPS technology has not been generally accepted by the scientific
community,'' he contended in court papers filed in October.

Geragos faces a gag order and can't comment on what he hopes to gain by
keeping the tracking evidence out of the trial. Likewise, prosecutors
haven't said how they hope to use the evidence.

If his claims about GPS unreliability fail to persuade Judge Alfred A.
Delucchi at the Wednesday hearing, Geragos hopes to prove the device used to
track Peterson was operated improperly by Modesto police.

Police used GPS to track Peterson from Jan. 3 through April 22, 2003, when
they arrested him near San Diego only days after the bodies of his wife and
unborn son surfaced in San Francisco Bay.

GPS was first developed for military use in 1978. In California, prosecutors
who use GPS evidence in court are required to establish the device's
reliability using properly qualified experts.

Prosecutors not connected to the Peterson trial say this shouldn't pose a
problem.

"We all know from how much we use GPS now that it's quite accurate,'' said
Mark Hutchins, senior deputy district attorney in Alameda County. "Airplanes
use it. Everyone's got a GPS map thing in their car.''

http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=81895

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:02:52 -0500

Allegedly, EITHER
the GPS technology is unreliable,
	OR
the GPS device was improperly operated.

Which will it be, counsellor??
(You're thinking like a true politician!)

Regards, Alan Dixon
The Washington Iconoclast
<[email-masked]>

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 23:59:56 -0500 [email-masked] writes:
	<snip>
Defense lawyer Mark Geragos will try to convince the judge
in the Scott Peterson double-murder case Wednesday that
global positioning technology is inaccurate and unreliable.
	<snip>
If his claims about GPS unreliability fail to persuade Judge Alfred A.
Delucchi at the Wednesday hearing, Geragos hopes to prove the device used
to
track Peterson was operated improperly by Modesto police.
	<snip>

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