A federal appeals court has upheld the sentence of life in prison levied against a Pike County man convicted of selling a fatal dose of fentanyl to a fellow inmate in the Pike County Detention Center.

Justin D. Bryant, 39, of Wall Street, Pikeville, was sentenced last year to serve life in prison in connection with the 2001 death of 20-year-old James Cornett of Thornton, who died after he overdosed while being held in the jail.