LOS ANGELES – A California appeals court has upheld the conviction of a man who was found guilty of a murder based on DNA evidence collected from a plastic foam coffee cup 30 years after the murder took place.

The 2nd District Court of Appeals' decision in the Los Angeles murder case was published Wednesday.

In 2006, Adolph Laudenberg was convicted of the 1972 strangling death of Lois Petrie, based on DNA evidence that detectives collected from the coffee cup more than 30 years later.

The court found that Laudenberg left the cup on a table in a coffee shop and therefore did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.