United States v. Lawrence D. Adkinson, 916 F.3d 605

In July 2015 Adkinson (African‑American) and co‑defendants robbed multiple cellphone stores, including a T‑Mobile store in Clarksville, IN; T‑Mobile conducted "tower dumps" to identify phones near the robberies and found a phone with Adkinson as an authorized user.
T‑Mobile produced tower‑dump and cell‑site location information (CSLI) to the FBI; later the FBI obtained additional CSLI via a court order under the Stored Communications Act.
Adkinson was charged in the Southern District of Indiana (New Albany Division), tried there, convicted of conspiracy, robbery, and firearms offenses, and sentenced to 346 months.
Pretrial, Adkinson moved: (1) to change venue on the morning of trial after seeing a nearly all‑white venire, arguing risk of implicit racial bias; and (2) to suppress phone location data as a warrantless search/agentive conduct by T‑Mobile (relying on Carpenter).
The district court denied both motions; this appeal challenges denial of the venue change and denial of suppression of tower‑dump data.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Change of venue based on venire racial composition	Adkinson: near‑all‑white venire created substantial risk of implicit racial bias; sought transfer to a division with more Black jurors	Government: proper venue (crime occurred in division), defendant received lawful cross‑section venire and could address bias via voir dire; motion untimely	Denied — no constitutional right to venire of particular racial makeup; motion untimely and speculative; voir dire adequate remedy
Suppression of tower‑dump / location data (warrantless disclosure)	Adkinson: T‑Mobile acted as a de facto government agent or at least its warrantless collection/sharing violated Fourth Amendment (Carpenter)	Government: T‑Mobile was a private actor acting on its own interests; Adkinson consented to T‑Mobile’s disclosure by contract; Carpenter does not require suppression of the tower dumps here	Denied — no agency shown; voluntary consent via carrier policy; Carpenter does not directly mandate suppression of tower dumps; later court‑ordered CSLI challenge waived

Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522 (defendant not entitled to jury of any particular racial composition)
Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400 (race‑based petit jury claims discussed)
Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206 (Supreme Court decision limiting warrantless historical CSLI access)
United States v. Shahid, 117 F.3d 322 (7th Cir. 1997) (private party searches implicate Fourth Amendment only when acting as government agent)
United States v. Aldridge, 642 F.3d 537 (agency/ratafication principles for private actors)
Medlock v. Trustees of Indiana Univ., 738 F.3d 867 (consent to conditions of service can waive privacy expectations)
United States v. Thomas, 897 F.3d 807 (failure to raise Carpenter‑type challenge below waives appellate review)
Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443 (government ratification principles)