United States v. Turner

Defendant conditionally plead guilty to aiding and abetting the possession of unauthorized access devices. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence of gift cards. The court agreed with the district court that defendant may challenge the seizure of the gift cards; the facts support probable cause to believe the gift cards were contraband or evidence of a crime; and the court joined its sister circuits in holding that a law enforcement officer’s scanning of the magnetic stripe on the back of a gift card is not a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The court concluded that society does not recognize as reasonable an expectation of privacy in the information encoded in a gift card’s magnetic stripe. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Turner" on Justia Law