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About the importance of technical evidence

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jaclaz
(@jaclaz)
Posts: 5133
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This case may be of interest, basically two different experts' findings about cell use/origin of calls (actually messages) were completely ignored
http//www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/07/mark_weiner_conviction_vacated_chelsea_steiniger_text_case_finally_overturned.single.html

jaclaz

 
Posted : 22/07/2015 6:39 pm
(@athulin)
Posts: 1156
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This case may be of interest, basically two different experts' findings about cell use/origin of calls (actually messages) were completely ignored …

It's really not the importance of technical evidence that's the point there, is it?

"They say that any prosecutor worth his salt can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich." From Hon. Alex Kozinski's Preface to the 44th Annual Review of Criminal Procedure, Georgetown Law Journal (see his point 8, p. viii). Looks like that prosecutor in the case you mentioned may have tried to live up to that image.

http//georgetownlawjournal.org/articles/criminal-law-2-0-preface-to-the-44th-annual-review-of-criminal-procedure/

It's scary reading, in several ways … at least to me.

 
Posted : 22/07/2015 10:31 pm
jaclaz
(@jaclaz)
Posts: 5133
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It's scary reading, in several ways … at least to me.

Yep, it is. cry

It won't be the first nor the last similar case, where an innocent is found guilty ( , but usually this happens because of lack of (exculpating) evidence or wrong interpretation of the available evidence, or simply by a "wrong" decision by the Jury, here it seems to me that the situation is much more serious, it is about negating access to the findings in Court by the prosecution and preventing defense from using the detectives as expert witnesses.

As part of her prosecution strategy, Weiner’s trial lawyer later said, Lunsford “sought the advice of two respected detectives in the city and the county” to pinpoint where the alleged victim’s text messages had originated. Each cop concluded independently that the texts had been sent from near where Steiniger's mother lived. Lunsford interviewed the first officer for the first time at the courthouse, just before he was scheduled to testify. He told the prosecutor he’d guess the calls came from Steiniger’s mother’s house, not the abandoned property.

Some prosecutors would call that sort of thing exculpatory information that must legally be turned over to the defense. Lunsford thanked the officer for stopping by and said she would no longer be needing his testimony after all. (This officer would later call the defense attorney and tell him what had transpired.) The second law enforcement officer offered up the same conclusion. He didn’t get to testify, either.

When defense counsel learned of the cellphone evidence and attempted to use one of the detectives as a defense witness, Lunsford had him disqualified as an expert, objecting to the fact that the defense attorney hadn’t subpoenaed the right witnesses to get the phone record evidence in. When the defense lawyer asked in chambers for a continuance so that he could call the correct witnesses, the motion was denied by trial court Judge Cheryl Higgins. Jurors would never hear what the phone tower records showed. Local lawyers and trial observers were shocked.

I would guess that the frustration of the two digital forensic expert witnesses must have been enormous.

jaclaz

 
Posted : 23/07/2015 5:14 pm
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