Rush, C.J.
Law enforcement secured a warrant to plant a small, inconspicuous GPS tracking device on Derek Heuring’s Ford Expedition. The device gave officers regular location readings for about a week—until it abruptly stopped providing updates. Over the next ten days, the officers could not determine what happened. But then, after discovering that the tracker was no longer attached to Heuring’s car, an officer obtained warrants to search Heuring’s home and his father’s barn for evidence of the device’s theft.
We hold that those search warrants were invalid because the affidavits did not establish probable cause that the GPS device was stolen. We further conclude that the affidavits were so lacking in probable cause that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply. Thus, under the exclusionary rule, the evidence seized from Heuring’s home and his father’s barn must be suppressed. We reverse and remand.
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Heuring argues that the initial search warrants for his home and his father’s barn were invalid because the accompanying affidavits failed to establish probable cause that a crime had been committed. He thus asserts that the seized evidence pursuant to both the initial search warrants and the subsequently issued warrants must be suppressed. The State disagrees, maintaining that the affidavits were supported by probable cause. Alternatively, the State contends that, even if the warrants were invalid, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies, making suppression unnecessary.
We agree with Heuring. The initial search warrants were invalid because the affidavits did not supply probable cause that the GPS device was stolen. And because reliance on the invalid warrants was objectively unreasonable, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply. Thus, all direct and derivative evidence obtained as a result of the invalid warrants must be suppressed.
I. The affidavits do not provide a substantial basis of fact from which a magistrate could find probable cause that the GPS tracking device was stolen.
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Here, the warrants authorized law enforcement to search Heuring’s home and his father’s barn for evidence of theft of the sheriff department’s GPS tracking device. So, to establish probable cause, the affidavits needed to show a fair probability that someone (1) at least “knowingly” exerted “unauthorized control over property of another person” and (2) did so “with intent to deprive the other person of any part of its value or use.” I.C. § 35-43-4-2(a) (defining “theft”).
The affidavits include the following facts, which the State maintains established probable cause that the device was stolen. The officers saw Heuring’s car at his house and in his father’s barn after the tracker stopped working. The officers knew that neither the battery nor the barn caused the device to stop working. And the officers did not believe the tracker had been accidentally dislodged for two reasons: first, Officer Busing was aware of a time when a similar device had become dislodged but was later found because it kept signaling; and second, a technician told Officer Young that the tracker “could have been unplugged and plugged back in to cause” the satellite to stop reading despite the fully charged battery.
As explained below, we disagree that these facts show a fair probability that a theft—or any crime—occurred. Specifically, the affidavits fail to establish probable cause in two respects. They lack information (1) that any control over the GPS device was knowingly unauthorized or (2) that there was an intent to deprive the sheriff’s department of the GPS device’s value or use.
A. The affidavits lack information that any control over the GPS device was knowingly unauthorized.
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In the affidavits, Officer Busing notes that the GPS device “placed on the subject vehicle” was “black in color [and] approximately” six inches by four inches. The affidavits also include facts tending to show that, at some unknown time over a ten-day period, the device was removed. That’s all. There is no evidence of who might have removed it. And there is nothing about markings or other identifying features on the device from which someone could determine either what it was or whose it was. In other words, what the affidavits show, at most, is that Heuring may have been the one who removed the device, knowing it was not his—not that he knew it belonged to law enforcement.
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Thus, the affidavits lack evidence showing a fair probability that any “control” over the device was “knowingly . . . unauthorized.” Given this factual deficiency, the affidavits are legally inadequate to establish probable cause that the device was stolen. Though this failure alone is fatal to the warrants’ validity, the affidavits are deficient in another respect.
B. The affidavits lack information that there was an intent to deprive the sheriff’s department of the GPS device’s value or use.
The affidavits also fail to show a fair probability that someone had the intent to deprive the sheriff’s department of any part of the tracker’s value or use. A person acts “intentionally” when “it is his conscious objective to do so.” I.C. § 35-41-2-2(a). Intent is a mental function; and so, absent an admission, it “can be inferred from a defendant’s conduct and the natural and usual sequence to which such conduct logically and reasonably points.” Phipps v. State, 90 N.E.3d 1190, 1195–96 (Ind. 2018) (quoting McCaskill v. State, 3 N.E.3d 1047, 1050 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014)); see also State v. McGraw, 480 N.E.2d 552, 554 (Ind. 1985).
Here, however, the affidavits do not include facts showing conduct pointing to any natural and usual sequence. Rather, they merely describe a ten-day period during which the officers lost track of the GPS device. And thus, the affidavits support nothing more than speculation—a hunch that someone removed the device with the conscious objective to deprive the sheriff’s department of its value or use.
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In sum, though the affidavits allege criminal activity, the facts they recite—when viewed under the totality of the circumstances—relate exclusively to noncriminal behavior and fail to connect the object of the search (the GPS device) with the alleged criminal activity (its theft). See Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 307 (1967). Indeed, the affidavits provide nothing more than a tenuous and conclusory suggestion that the tracker was stolen. Thus, the search warrants, unsupported by probable cause, were invalid. And unless an exception to the exclusionary rule applies, the evidence subsequently obtained must be suppressed.
II. The affidavits are so lacking in indicia of probable cause that the good-faith exception does not apply.
The State—in a single paragraph—argues that the good-faith exception applies. Heuring disagrees, maintaining that there was a “total lack of probable cause” and thus, the officers could not reasonably assert that they relied on “the warrants in good faith.” We agree with Heuring.
We conclude that these affidavits were devoid of information linking the GPS device to criminal activity and thus were so lacking in indicia of probable cause that reliance on them was objectively unreasonable. Though Officer Busing obtained the warrants to search for evidence of theft, the affidavits did not include facts supporting essential elements of the alleged crime. Rather, they were based on noncriminal behavior, a hunch, and a conclusory statement. Thus, a reasonably well-trained officer, in reviewing these affidavits, would have known that they failed to establish probable cause and, without more, would not have applied for the warrants. See Woods, 514 N.E.2d at 1283 (finding the good-faith exception did not apply where the affidavits provided “no basis for believing a crime had been committed”).
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Thus, the exclusionary rule requires suppression of all evidence seized from Heuring’s home and his father’s barn. The evidence found during the initial search of each location must be excluded because those searches were illegal. And it was “by exploitation of that illegality” that law enforcement secured warrants to search each location a second time. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488 (1963). As a result, the evidence found during those subsequent searches must also be excluded as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Id.
Conclusion
The initial search warrants were invalid because the accompanying affidavits did not provide a substantial basis to support the magistrate’s probable cause finding. Further, the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply, and thus, the evidence obtained from Heuring’s home and his father’s barn must be suppressed. We reverse and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
David, Massa, Slaughter, and Goff, JJ., concur.