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takyon writes:

A group of defense attorneys, including a public defender, will review over 1,900 cases in which Stingray cellphone tracking technology was used secretly. They plan to ask judges to throw out "a large number" of criminal convictions based on Stingray evidence. From USA Today:

Defense lawyers in Baltimore are examining nearly 2,000 cases in which the police secretly used powerful cellphone tracking devices, and they plan to ask judges to throw out "a large number" of criminal convictions as a result. "This is a crisis, and to me it needs to be addressed very quickly," said Baltimore's deputy public defender, Natalie Finegar, who is coordinating those challenges. "No stone is going to be left unturned at this point."

The move follows a USA TODAY investigation this week that revealed that Baltimore police have used cellphone trackers, commonly known as stingrays, to investigate crimes as minor as harassing phone calls, then concealed the surveillance from suspects and their lawyers. Maryland law generally requires that electronic surveillance be disclosed in court.

Finegar and others said they do not know how many criminal cases they ultimately will seek to reopen because of the secret phone tracking, but she expects it to be "a large number." The public defender's office is reviewing a surveillance log published by USA TODAY that lists more than 1,900 cases in which the police indicated they had used a stingray. It includes at least 200 public defender clients who were ultimately convicted of a crime.

Stingrays are suitcase-sized devices that allow the police to pinpoint a cellphone's location to within a few yards by posing as a cell tower. In the process, they also can intercept information from the phones of nearly everyone else who happens to be nearby.

[...] "This has really opened the floodgates," Baltimore defense lawyer Josh Insley said. He said he could start filing challenges to some of his clients' convictions by next week.

A spokeswoman for Baltimore's State's Attorney, Tammy Brown, said prosecutors will evaluate each challenge on its own merits. She agreed that prosecutors are required to tell defendants when the police use a stingray, but "we need to get that information first."

Overturning a criminal conviction is no small task. Before they can even ask judges to take that step, defense lawyers have to comb through the surveillance log to figure out which of their clients were targets of the phone tracking, then contact them in prison. "It's probably going to be a long process," ACLU attorney Nathan Wessler said. "But now at least you have defense lawyers who know what happened to their clients and can invoke the power of the courts to make sure that the Constitution was complied with."

Via The Register.