The United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division has decided one of the first, if not the first case on standing grounds since Carpenter was decided and to ruled against the Defendant.
The District Court started by stating that the Supreme Court decided that a defendant could claim a Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy CSLI of his own phone. The District Court states that there was no question in Carpenter about the ownership or control of the cell phones. The District Court ruled that Carpenter was “premised upon the subject phones being in the possession and control of the defendants.”
Since the District Court believes that Carpenter is limited to the issue of “someone alleging a violation of the privacy of their own phone,” Carpenter did not apply to this case because Defendant’s counsel represented to the Court that Defendant, at no time in his life, has ever: (1) bought or owned the phone; (2) knowingly possessed the phone; (3) used the phone; (4) controlled who used the phone; (5) excluded others from using the phone; or (6) authorized others to use the phone.
The District Court rejected the argument that the Defendant still had standing under these circumstances. Because of this lack of standing, the District Court denied the Motion to Suppress the CSLI.
The case is United States v. Oakes, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128963, 2018 WL 3639861 (M.D. Tenn.), (July 31)