A federal appeals court has ruled that there is no Fourth Amendment violation when a criminal defendant is tracked through the GPS technology on his disposable mobile phone. In a split decision, it held that the defendant “did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data emanating from his cell phone that showed its location.”
On August 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the conviction of Melvin Skinner on two counts of drug trafficking and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The court also affirmed a sentence of 235 months in prison, five years of supervised release, plus a $100 special assessment for each count issued by Judge Thomas Phillips of the Eastern District of Tennessee.
