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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: 2, Interesting) by varsix on Wednesday March 22 2017, @12:16PM (3 children)
Justice in the United States is dead. In fact, it never was. That goes to show that constitutional rights, like George Carlin said, are just temporary privileges. And also as he said, nobody seems to notice, and nobody seems to care.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @01:00PM (2 children)
The coverage and responses this case is getting indicate quite a few people do care, even when the miscarriage of justice is being levied against some of the least desirable of society.
I think the problem is not that people don't care, but they rightfully feel like they cannot do anything. Think about the fact that of our last 5 presidents, we came within a hair's breadth of being able to say 4 were related by blood or marriage. Instead 'only' 2 were. For such an important position at the highest level to come down to, in large, cronyism and nepotism is just so inconceivably broken. And the whole system seems to attract the worst of the worst. I don't like to just whine so I would say that proportional representation would be a huge step forward towards fixing this. Unfortunately going that direction would require the very establishment that it would undermine to pass - as would most of any change. This is why getting people into office who are not a part of the political establishment, even if we might otherwise detest their views, is so crucially important.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:44PM (1 child)
Miscarriages of justice will always be a problem. The big problems here tend to be that they disproportionately affect the poor and powerless in a negative way and the rich and powerful in a positive way. That combined with how the system handles cases that pop up. In most cases, the prosecution will fight tooth and nail well past the point where there's any legitimate question about the verdict being just and appropriate.
Properly funding the public defenders office and ensuring that everybody has the right to a competent attorney's representation would go a long way towards fixing the system.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 22 2017, @05:41PM
They really don't want to let the malformed case be aborted, so someone's suffering until there's a miscarriage.
There is little doubt that someone did sin, but since they can't prove it, they should entrust the final judgement to $deity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:08PM (2 children)
There could be new images on the drive that the investigators don't know about. With access, hash values for those images can be calculated for future cases. Or there may be a "paper trail" leading to distributors. Revealing the password can help prosecute other criminals.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 22 2017, @05:51PM (1 child)
> Revealing the password can help prosecute other criminals.
He was a cop. He's accused of child pornography.
Based on those two things, do you think he's gonna do anything that would land him for decades in the slammer (then as a registered sex offender)?
His fifth amendment case is turning into a sixth... Mr T nominated an originalist to SCOTUS. He may just walk away with a three-to-four-year effective sentence by the time SCOTUS releases him, and a "sorry we couldn't convict" payment. The clock ticks for him, as the drives may just stop working altogether, and people know that.
Why would he cooperate in this case? "help prosecute other[s]" is not worth it...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @11:12AM
He should never cooperate with those who would have him follow a Ruler/Judge/God other than the Eternal One; he should actively seek to destroy them.
This cop, who you here claim knows that it is man's right to have a child bride, has the correct beliefs (if your claims are correct).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ledow on Wednesday March 22 2017, @02:29PM (4 children)
Not in any way defending the guy's actions.
But if the only course to proceed is to lock up someone that - by definition - you don't have evidence against, the law is wrong.
If it requires his co-operation to get evidence, it means you don't have enough evidence elsewhere to convict.
If it doesn't require his co-operation, it means you could convict without it.
Sure, there may be MORE things, which he is withholding, but then it's a slippery slope from there to "Look, John, we know you're nicking from more than just the one supermarket, so you'll stay in prison until you tell us every crime you've ever committed".
And that's not justice.
If you require a defendant's co-operation to convict them, your case is dead in the water. You don't need to be a lawyer to see that, whether it's a confession beaten out of them, or someone revealing a passcode.
Someone's going to be due a hefty payout when he is released, which is going to make the legal system look even more foolish - having to pay a probable/suspected/convicted criminal for inconveniencing him because you had no evidence against him.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @11:37PM
...on an iPhone.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:40AM
/article.pl?sid=16/04/28/1516203 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @11:16AM
99
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @11:18AM
100!