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Wilkes-Barre’s Corcoran Printing celebrates 80th anniversary

A Superior Court ruling on Tuesday denied the appeal of a Wilkes-Barre man who was convicted last year of third-degree murder in a drug deal gone bad.
				Antoine McNeal, 36, was sentenced to between 22 and 44 years&rsquo; incarceration on charges of third-degree murder, criminal use of a communications facility, tampering with evidence and robbery by Judge Tina Polacheck Gartley on Feb. 25, 2019. The guilty verdict was handed down a month previously, on Jan. 11.
				McNeal moved to suppress the evidence investigators pulled from his cell phone based on a warrantless search; the motion was struck down in a suppression court, after which he appealed to the Superior Court.
				McNeal&rsquo;s conviction was in relation to the murder of Brandon Smith on the morning of Jan. 19, 2017.
				According to the court&rsquo;s opinion statement, Smith had been texting with an unidentified person for about an hour to arrange a drug deal.
				Around 2 a.m., Smith went outside of his mother&rsquo;s home to make the sale, but was shot and died in the hospital shortly after.
				Investigators found two cell phones at the scene: One identified as belonging to Smith, and a Samsung smartphone that Smith&rsquo;s family couldn&rsquo;t identify.
				After meeting with McNeal&rsquo;s girlfriend, police discovered that the number that was texting Smith just before the shooting belonged to McNeal.
				They powered up the Samsung phone, and called McNeal&rsquo;s number from the barracks landline, causing the Samsung phone to ring and confirming that the Samsung phone was the one texting Smith before he was killed.
				Using this information, police obtained a warrant to search the Samsung phone for other data, and eventually arrested McNeal for the shooting.
				McNeal&rsquo;s motion to suppress the evidence gathered from his phone was opposed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, stating that simply dialing his number was not a search, that he abandoned his phone and therefore forfeited his right to privacy and that the evidence would have been discovered anyway.
				Both the suppression court and the Superior Court ruled against McNeal&rsquo;s appeal. The opinion from the Superior Court states that McNeal&rsquo;s argument for his right to privacy was underdeveloped and lacked constitutional legitimacy, and that the Court &ldquo;will not act as counsel and will not develop arguments on behalf of an appellant.&rdquo;

Convicted murderer fails in evidence suppression appeal