NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A federal appeals court has upheld a conviction of a multistate drug runner based on information on his interstate travel that authorities tracked from his non-contract cell phone.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Tuesday that upheld the conviction of Melvin Skinner, who argued that the district court should have suppressed GPS information from his cell phone used to track his travels between Arizona and Tennessee.
Skinner was convicted of drug trafficking and money laundering. The opinion said that while the drug runners in this case presumed the pay-as-you-go phones were more difficult to trace, they didn't realize the phones had GPS capabilities.
Authorities used the data from Skinner's phone to determine his location and resulted in his arrest in Texas with 1,100 pounds of marijuana.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
