CA3: The govt’s mere attribution of a cell phone to def doesn’t give him standing

Defendant couldn’t show standing in the cell phones that were searched. “ On appeal, Gatson points to the Government’s attribution of Phone 1 to him as evidence of his standing to make a claim. However, this attribution by the Government does not meet Gatson’s burden because he must demonstrate his ‘expectation of privacy’ in the phones. Stringer, 739 F.3d at 396. Without a personal interest in the cell phones, Gatson lacks standing to assert suppression of the data obtained relating to them. Hence the District Court did not err in denying Gatson’s motion to suppress evidence.” United States v. Gatson, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 22170 (3d Cir. Aug. 9, 2018). [There are a couple of reasons that come to mind how a phone can be attributed to one defendant but belong to another: the most obvious is sharing it for drug deals, or defendant carrying it sometimes.]