This seems like a case where the prosecutors are making things hard on themselves. Or, my tinfoil hat wants me to think, deliberately testing the waters with a

This seems like a case where the prosecutors are making things hard on themselves. Or, my tinfoil hat wants me to think, deliberately testing the waters with an interpretation they’d like to turn into precedent. If the contents of the disk are a foregone conclusion (and assuming the article’s framing of the “foregone conclusion” idea is correct, and I’m not even close to being a lawyer so I have no idea) then it seems like a slam dunk that they would be able to compel him to produce the incriminating contents of the disk - but not the password that unlocks the entire disk, presumably including things that don’t have that “foregone conclusion” status. Or they could likely just use his statement as evidence of the content of the disk. Either of those would almost certainly get the conviction they want with far less drama.