13 Saturday Jun 2015
Posted in Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Law, Forensic Evidence
≈ Comments Off on So What Happened To The Body?
Livor Mortis & Placing a Victim in the Trunk of a Car, by Colin Miller, EvidenceProf Blog
For the past week, I’ve been trying to find a case involving lividity and a body in a trunk. The only case that I was able to find is State v. Persitz, 518 N.W.2d 843 (Minn. 1994). The Persitz case isn’t especially factually similar to the Adnan Syed case, but it does provide some interesting points of comparison/contrast. . . .
27 Sunday Jul 2014
Posted in Android Phones, Appellate Law, Apple, Blackberry Phones, Cell Phones, Computer Forensics, Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Law, Cybersecurity, Discovery, E-Discovery, Emails, Evidence, Experts, Forensic Evidence, Forensic Evidence, Forensic Expert Witness, Fourth Amendment - Search & Seizure, Google, Internet, iPad, iPhones, Legal Technology, Mac, PC Computers, Privacy, Search Warrants, Tablets, Trial Tips and Techniques, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
≈ Comments Off on Government Can Access Individual’s Gmail Account In Money Laundering Probe.
Tags
Computers, Email, Evidence, Forensic Experts, Gmail, Google, Hard Drives, Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein, Money Laundering, Search & Seizure, Warrants
In a landmark ruling that might fuel a nationwide debate, the New York Court issued a warrant against Google, giving access to user emails.
A New York Court issued a warrant against Google Inc ruling that the government can access all mails of a Gmail account of an individual under a money laundering probe. The judge said that courts have long been waiting for law enforcement to take the required documents in the custody if it is within the purview of the warrant.
Contrary to previous rulings
This decision is not in line with the previous court rulings including courts in the Districts of Columbia and Kansas, Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York noted on Friday. Also, this latest ruling will spark a debate over the privacy, in the country, according to Computer World.
A District of Columbia judge denied from revealing the entire content of the email as this will seize a large amount of emails for which the authorities have not given any reason.
The Court in Kansas, also, did not rule in favor of a similar warrant, stating that it failed to ‘limit the universe of electronic communications and information to be turned over to the government to the specific crimes being investigated.’
However, the New York Court ruled in favor of such warrant, allowing authorities to take into account the emails and other information from a Google inc’s Gmail account, including the address book and draft mails, and also the authority to search the emails for certain specific categories of evidence.
Experts must scan emails, not Google employee
Judge Gorenstein argued that it is not possible to search the hard-disk drives of computers and other storage devices on the spot due to the complexities of electronic searches. Thus, the authorities can seize such storage.
‘We perceive no constitutionally significant difference between the searches of hard drives just discussed and searches of email accounts,’ the judge wrote. He added that in most of the cases data in an email account will be less ‘expansive’ compared to the information contained in the hard drive.
Judge Gorenstein stated that Google employees are not expert enough to know the importance of particular emails without having been given proper training in the substance of the investigation. Judge said this in response to an opinion by the District of Columbia court that gave the government the option of getting the email scanned by the host itself.
He said that an agent, who is completely absorbed in the investigation, will be able to understand the importance of a particular language in emails contrary to the employee.
03 Monday Mar 2014
Tags
5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Bite Marks, Kennedy Brewer, Levon Brooks, Louisiana, Medical Examiner, Michael West, Mississippi Innocence Project, National Association of Medical Examiners, Steven Hayne, Tavares Flaggs
The Fifth Circuit Turns Its Back on Forensics Scandal in Mississippi, by Radley Balko, The Washington Post, reposted in Forensic Magazine
With a curt, three-page ruling late last month, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied the post-conviction petition of Tavares Flaggs, a Mississippi man currently serving a life sentence for murder.
Flaggs was convicted in large part because of the testimony of Steven Hayne, a medical examiner who for about two decades was able to monopolize the autopsy business in Mississippi. This story should really be one of the bigger criminal justice scandals in recent U.S. history. It potentially affects thousands of cases, both criminal and civil. It involves wrongful convictions, and people let off who should be behind bars. Several of the people convicted based on flawed testimony from Hayne are still on death row, in both Mississippi and in Louisiana. Flaggs’ petition, filed by the Mississippi Innocence Project, was the most comprehensive summary of what happened in Mississippi yet to get before a federal court. The Fifth Circuit panel brushed it aside in just four paragraphs. . . .
The Researching Paralegal 
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