If true, I wouldn't think the Sheriff's Office would have wanted this information to be made public. I guess it would have come out at some point so maybe they wanted to be the ones to get the story out first?
I guess it does bring up the question of the necessity of having an additional set of eyes check the search terms, procedures, findings and other aspects of the investigation?
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Too bad discovery doesn't flow both ways. What if the prosecutor had withheld and exculpatory search term?
One of the joys of working law enforcement is the competing management priorities. One one hand, they want you to find all the important evidence. On the other hand, they want to get the cases closed and move on to the next one as soon as possible. This creates a trap whereby a forensic examiner finds what they think is the good evidence and then stops.
I recall this issue in the context of child abuse material investigations. Once you get a certain amount of CP, you're definitely getting a conviction and it's tempting to stop. But what if the image you miss is of the suspect's daughter being abused in his home, and you only found the downloaded material?
Of course, with massive data quantities on hard drives, there is always going to be something that you don't look at, and at some point you have to stop, but is greater justice done by clearing cases faster, or by producing the best evidence?