The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

The ruling represents a serious complication for law enforcement nationwide, which increasingly relies on high tech surveillance of suspects, including the use of various types of satellite technology.

A GPS device installed by police on Washington nightclub owner Antoine Jones' Jeep helped them link him to a suburban house used to stash money and drugs. He was sentenced to life in prison before the appeals court overturned the conviction.

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said that the government's installation of a GPS device, and its use to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a search, meaning that a warrant is required.

A federal judge on Wednesday delayed next week's execution of a man who stabbed to death an elderly couple, saying the state had once again failed to follow its own rules for executions.

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost said he does not want to micromanage Ohio executions but added that the Department of Corrections has left him no choice by disobeying his previous orders. Charles Lorraine was scheduled to die by injection on Jan. 18.

Frost said the state failed to document the drugs used in its last execution in November and failed to review the medical chart of the inmate who was put to death.

Frost scolded the state in his opinion by saying if Ohio would do a better job of explaining why it might deviate from its policies, it might not be in this position.

"Do not lie to the Court, do not fail to do what you tell this Court you must do, and do not place the Court in the position of being required to change course in this litigation after every hearing," Frost wrote. "Today's adverse decision against Defendants is again a curiously if not inexplicably self-inflicted wound."

Both the prisons system and the Ohio attorney general's office were reviewing the decision and could not immediately comment. The state has usually, but not always, appealed similar decisions by Frost to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Supreme Court won't let a man sentenced to prison for murder appeal his conviction despite his complaints that his window for further consideration was unfairly closed.

The high court on Tuesday upheld the ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Rafael Arriaza Gonzalez.

Gonzalez appealed his conviction for murder and his 30-year sentence in 2006 but missed one of the state lower court appeals deadlines. The federal courts since then have refused to hear his appeal, saying he filed in federal court one month after the required one-year deadline.

The courts started counting from the day Gonzalez missed the state court deadline, but the inmate said they should have started counting after the Texas courts officially declared his case over.

The high court said that the lower courts had correctly calculated the deadline for Gonzalez to file. Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote that Gonzalez's one-year deadline to appeal to the federal court began when he missed the state court filing date. Since Gonzalez filed one month after that one-year cutoff, the judgment against him became final, she said.