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On Monday, a US federal appeals court sided against a former Philadelphia police officer who has been in jail 17 months because he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. He had refused to comply with a court order commanding him to unlock two hard drives the authorities say contain child porn.
The 3-0 decision (PDF) by the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals means that the suspect, Francis Rawls, likely will remain jailed indefinitely or until the order (PDF) finding him in contempt of court is lifted or overturned. However, he still can comply with the order and unlock two FileVault encrypted drives connected to his Apple Mac Pro. Using a warrant, authorities seized those drives from his residence in 2015. While Rawls could get out from under the contempt order by unlocking those drives, doing so might expose him to other legal troubles.
In deciding against Rawls, the court of appeals found that the constitutional rights against being compelled to testify against oneself were not being breached. That's because the appeals court, like the police, agreed that the presence of child porn on his drives was a "foregone conclusion." The Fifth Amendment, at its most basic level, protects suspects from being forced to disclose incriminating evidence. In this instance, however, the authorities said they already know there's child porn on the drives, so Rawls' constitutional rights aren't compromised.
[...] The suspect's attorney, Federal Public Defender Keith Donoghue, was disappointed by the ruling.
"The fact remains that the government has not brought charges," Donoghue said in a telephone interview. "Our client has now been in custody for almost 18 months based on his assertion of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday March 22 2017, @03:54PM (3 children)
Not in any way defending the guy's actions.
He had refused to comply with a court order commanding him to unlock two hard drives the authorities say contain child porn.
To be fair, I don't see the guy having much chance at a normal life no matter how the case went.
1) He cooperates in unlocking the device, gets convicted, and we all know how much people love dudes on sex offender lists.
2) He cooperates and is acquitted (admittedly rather unlikely). People still probably find out he was on trial for sexcrime and we all know how much everybody strictly adheres to "innocent until proven guilty" in popular culture.
3) He refuses to cooperate and is jailed indefinitely.
So I guess there are worse hills to die on.
I like the rest of your post. Just playing devil's advocate a bit here.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:43PM (1 child)
Exactly.
That's not to say we need to give him an incentive to co-operate, though.
But, what's in it for him? He can only put himself into a worse position. Why would you expect co-operation in that kind of instance?
His lawyers must be really bad, though, to let it get this far.
It's like in the movies when you see hostage situations or muggings - Give me X or I'll kill you. Well, with that kind of attitude, there's no saying you won't kill me as soon as you get X anyway. Why should I co-operate?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:07PM
Bullet in the brain-pan now is worse than possible bullet in five minutes. Rather depends what it is they want.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:27AM
3) He refuses to cooperate and is jailed indefinitely.
It is said that he claims that he forgot the password. If so, eventually he will be released for other reasons, as it is unthinkable to keep the person jailed forever because he does not remember something or because whatever he does remember does not work right on a computer. His accuser - the judge - will have to prove that the defendant knows the correct password - and how would anyone do that? If he is guilty, he'd better stick to his story - otherwise he'd remain jailed anyway, but now as a convicted criminal. There is absolutely no upside for him in revealing the password.
Just for comparison, I have hundreds of passwords, most are 32 random characters, others are binary keys. There is no way to rembember even one of them. They are stored in a database with a backup, of course, as many people like to do (using password managers.) If the complete set of databases and backups is deleted or destroyed, those keys are not recoverable until the heat death of this Universe. This can be such a simple event as dropping all three thumb drives (primary and backups) from a bridge or throwing them into fire.