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posted by on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the better-treatment-than-if-he's-guilty dept.

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


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  • (Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:27AM

    by tftp (806) on Thursday March 23 2017, @05:27AM (#483093) Homepage

    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.