Supreme Court Case Of Timothy Carpenter

1800 Words8 Pages

Issue:
Whether the warrantless seizure and search of historical cellphone records revealing the location and movements of a cellphone user of the course of 127 days is permitted by the Fourth Amendment?
Facts:
In April 2011, a group of four men were arrested for a series of armed robberies in Michigan and Ohio. One of the four men confessed to the crimes, and he gave the FBI his number along with the number of everyone else involved in the crime. One of the people convicted in the crime was Timothy Carpenter. Timothy Carpenter, was convicted and sentenced to 116 years in prison for his role in a series of armed robberies in Michigan and Ohio. To convict Carpenter, law- enforcement officials used cell phone records that confirmed his cell …show more content…

In United States v. Miller the Supreme court ruled that using the bank records of a man to convict him did not violate the Fourth Amendment, even though law-enforcement officials did not have the warrant to look thru the bank records. This was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment because the bank records contained only “the information voluntarily conveys to the banks and exposed to their employees in the ordinary course of business.” By getting any working cellphone, it is known that the information that goes in and out of the towers such as the times the calls were made, data usage, and the general vicinity of the person does not violate privacy, and it’s rather a known agreement with the person using the cellphone and the cell phone …show more content…

A warrant is not needed in the search of the cell phone records. The Fourth Amendment is not violated as the cell phone records are not showing the exact location and conversations of the cell phone user, but just rather the tower that the phone was connected too. The location of the tower only indicates that the cell phone user is within a certain radius from the tower. The user before getting a cellphone usually knows that their phones are connected to the towers, and the information that is present in a cell phone record is usually shared within a company for reasons such as product development to marketing or to know where weak spots exist in the network and where roaming charges must be applied. Therefore, the use of cell phone records without a warrant is not violating the Fourth amendment, as the information coming from the records is information that the user knows that they are sharing with the cellphone provider