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Ars Technica reports about a case in Missouri that may have been dropped to law enforcement's use of Stingray:
A woman accused of being a getaway driver in a series of robberies in St. Louis has changed her plea from guilty to not guilty after finding out that a stingray was used in her case.
Wilqueda Lillard was originally set to testify against her three other co-defendants, whose charges were also dropped earlier this month. As a result of changing her plea, the local prosecutor dropped the charges against her on Monday.
Terence Niehoff, Lillard’s attorney, explained to Ars that she pleaded guilty before learning about the use of the stingray. When her co-defendants’ attorneys challenged a police detective during a deposition, and that officer refused to provide further information, the case was eventually dropped.
However, Lauren Trager, the spokeswoman for the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office denied to Ars that the dropping was related:
I am unable to provide the information you requested. Despite the opinion of the defense attorney in this matter, the dismissal of the cases was not related in any way to any technology used in the investigation."
(Score: 5, Informative) by MrGuy on Friday May 01 2015, @08:54PM
It's not a matter of whether they have a warrant or not.
The problem is the rule of law, specifically that the accused are allowed to confront their accuser and the evidence against them. If information obtained via a stingray were allowed in court, the defense would be entitled to information on how the stingray works and what it collects, so they would be able to challenge the accuracy and validity of the evidence collected.
In other words, to use Stingray evidence (or evidence that was gathered BASED on Stingray evidence, such as evidence from a search warrant where the basis for the warrant was Stingray evidence), they'd have to introduce "how Stingray works" into the public record.
And that, they are utterly unwilling to do. In fact, the company that makes the Stingray device has a very strict NDA [wired.com] prohibiting law enforcement from talking about their use or how they work.
Whether you have a warrant or not isn't the problem. The problem is disclosure that the device was used at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @10:27PM
I've never been to St. Louis. But any time I hear about it in the news, it's never about something good. The criminal problem in and around St. Louis sounds particularly troubling.
We have the case of Michael Brown, for example. There is video footage of him attacking a store keeper and stealing goods. It's clearly him, and he's wearing the exact same clothes as in the photos of him after he attacked the police officer and the police officer had to defend himself with force. All of the evidence examined by the grand jury points to him having attacked the police officer. Yet we still hear so many people claim he wasn't acting criminally, even when the evidence overwhelmingly and indisputably suggests that he was engaging in such behavior.
Now there's this case. The evidence described in the article, plus the initial guilty plea and the willingness to testify against the others, is all very damning and suspicious.
So what is it with St. Louis? Why do people there who have likely engaged in criminal behavior end up getting treated as "victims"?
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday May 01 2015, @10:40PM
The police force is... questionable in some places. The particular ways they are vary from place to place. The news makes it out to be this terrible shithole most of the time, but it's really not THAT bad. I used to live downtown and frequently took long walks at night without really any concern for my safety. Actually used to live about a mile from where this happened, per the link in the summary, and I've walked around in that area before. It's mostly businesses, with some nicer apartments here and there. Has its fair share of homeless sleeping in the streets/parks though, like just about any downtown area I've been to.
Like many cities, it has good and bad places, and those areas do a surprisingly good job of keeping to themselves. Ferguson was a low income location that was just beginning to start to get nice. Local businesses, a microbrewery, and the like. White flight is a genuine concern for the city though. Anecdotally, every time I hear about friends/coworkers moving, it's always further west. Likewise have a lot of other people I've asked about the matter.
Other than this and Ferguson, what have you heard of happening here lately? Only other thing I can think of that was violent that hit the news was a murder on Cherokee, but that was a couple years ago.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @11:14PM
Because the prosecutors also engaged in criminal behaviour?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2015, @11:23PM
Because in that area you have many instances of outright corruption and racism, like the police locking the newly-elected mayor out of city hall [huffingtonpost.com] and systematic racism [cnn.com] so its hard to take anything the police say at face value.
(Score: 2) by Techwolf on Saturday May 02 2015, @01:06AM
"There is video footage of him attacking a store keeper and stealing goods."
That is the police edited version, find and watch the full length version and it shows him paying the clerk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @02:54AM
I believe you. How many times will we have to go through this? Even in Baltimore and the "Riotous thugs" with the police having a credible thread about gang members allying to "take-out" law enforcement officers. Dig into it and see that the police orchestrated it, antagonized it, broadcast it, made damn sure it was gonna happen, then played the sympathy card for three days.
Still didn't get their murderous pals from getting in trouble, but did postpone it a few days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @04:37AM
I saw footage of the looting and burning of a pharmacy there. It wasn't police doing the looting and burning. It was black youth.
I keep hearing how "bad" the police are, yet it's always the black youth who are looting, stealing, and destroying the property of others during these incidents, whether we're talking about Baltimore or Ferguson or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Touché) by deimtee on Saturday May 02 2015, @10:54AM
I saw footage of the looting and burning of a pharmacy there. It wasn't police doing the looting and burning. It was black youth.
I see. This obviously justifies the pre-emptive shooting of Michael Brown a few days before the looting.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @03:38PM
He's black, so of course he was going to be looting. Don't you know, you can tell everything about a person by looking at the color of their skin. Whites are good, honest, God-fearing people, and blacks are no good thugs who riot, steal, and kill at every opportunity. Why not preemptively get rid of the trash since we already know they're trash? That is, after all, the whole point of the "drug war".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @11:43AM
The police often act like thugs. Never heard of the drug war? Never heard of civil forfeiture? Never heard of stringrays? Never heard of stop-and-frisk? Never heard of all the cases of the police using excessive force? And the 'justice' system is heavily biased in favor of police.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @03:44PM
it's always the black youth who are looting, stealing, and destroying the property of others during these incidents
Because whites never [nypost.com] riot [storify.com] at all [therichest.com], right [mic.com]?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday May 01 2015, @11:47PM
Whether you have a warrant or not isn't the problem.
Yes, it is. Even if there was disclosure, mass surveillance would still be unconstitutional. So not only should they disclose that these devices were used in court cases even if they have a warrant, they should have a warrant to begin with.