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Maybe in the USA. In Europe, evidence in criminal court cases needs to adhere to standards such as chain of custody. Which Cellebrite obviously fails given this

by Beldin 5y ago

Maybe in the USA. In Europe, evidence in criminal court cases needs to adhere to standards such as chain of custody. Which Cellebrite obviously fails given this research - their tool's output could be manipulated.

jakelazaroff 5y ago
And someone could have opened an evidence bag and resealed it, but my guess is you don’t see courts throwing out evidence unless there’s reason to believe that actually happened.
- salawat 5y ago
  There is, in fact, a current court case around a Sheriff's deputy accused of planting methamphetamine related paraphenelia in over 162 cases. See the ongoing Zachary Wester affair. That's falsely implicating 162 innocents of a felonius crime, tarnishing their future prospects for life, which reulted in plea bargains being accepted because the accused could not get sufficient legal representation to make the prospect of a successful legal defense doable, and a completely innocent of the charge individual didn't want to run the risk of amplification of sentence just for exercising a civil right. Besides being an example of why plea bargains make a mockery of our legal system; "just take this lesser charge that we don't have to really work at proving it so we can be done with it, because think of how bad the sentence will be if you make us work at it", it demonstrates that even procedures as they are now are such that an officer/prosecutor have and are willing to exploit their capability to manufacture suffering for those they serve for personal gain. The System is getting shocked by it's vulnerability to the untrustworthy agent currently. So I wouldn't discount some fundamental reassessments of procedure down the road.
  - acdha 5y ago
    It is a travesty but I think that case works more for the person you’re replying to: it was evidence of misconduct (the prosecutor noticing his body cam footage didn’t match his reports) which called that into question, not just saying someone _could_ have tampered with the evidence. This will work the same way: if there’s corroborating evidence, it’s likely to be as futile as the original article’s author predicts, but if there is something speculative which has only unconfirmed evidence from Cellebrite it might be enough to get that thrown out.
- Beldin 5y ago
  Actually the opposite: you would expect courts to toss out (and/or: opposition to successfully challenge) all evidence unless chain of custody is guaranteed. That's a very important part of "innocent till proven guilty". Your suggestion flips this around, thus leading to "guilty till proven innocent". Perhaps that is how things stand in practice in the USA. I don't think that that is how things should be.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    It’s not “guilty until proven innocent” to keep evidence if the defense can’t show it’s been compromised. As a logical extreme example, you are suggesting that courts forbid eyewitness testimony, since it’s always possible that they are mistaken or lying.
    - Tostino 5y ago
      Not GP, but I would highly prefer they give eye witness testimony much less weight than they do today.

by Beldin 5y ago

jakelazaroff 5y ago

And someone could have opened an evidence bag and resealed it, but my guess is you don’t see courts throwing out evidence unless there’s reason to believe that actually happened.

salawat 5y ago
There is, in fact, a current court case around a Sheriff's deputy accused of planting methamphetamine related paraphenelia in over 162 cases. See the ongoing Zachary Wester affair. That's falsely implicating 162 innocents of a felonius crime, tarnishing their future prospects for life, which reulted in plea bargains being accepted because the accused could not get sufficient legal representation to make the prospect of a successful legal defense doable, and a completely innocent of the charge individual didn't want to run the risk of amplification of sentence just for exercising a civil right. Besides being an example of why plea bargains make a mockery of our legal system; "just take this lesser charge that we don't have to really work at proving it so we can be done with it, because think of how bad the sentence will be if you make us work at it", it demonstrates that even procedures as they are now are such that an officer/prosecutor have and are willing to exploit their capability to manufacture suffering for those they serve for personal gain. The System is getting shocked by it's vulnerability to the untrustworthy agent currently. So I wouldn't discount some fundamental reassessments of procedure down the road.
- acdha 5y ago
  It is a travesty but I think that case works more for the person you’re replying to: it was evidence of misconduct (the prosecutor noticing his body cam footage didn’t match his reports) which called that into question, not just saying someone _could_ have tampered with the evidence. This will work the same way: if there’s corroborating evidence, it’s likely to be as futile as the original article’s author predicts, but if there is something speculative which has only unconfirmed evidence from Cellebrite it might be enough to get that thrown out.
Beldin 5y ago
Actually the opposite: you would expect courts to toss out (and/or: opposition to successfully challenge) all evidence unless chain of custody is guaranteed. That's a very important part of "innocent till proven guilty". Your suggestion flips this around, thus leading to "guilty till proven innocent". Perhaps that is how things stand in practice in the USA. I don't think that that is how things should be.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  It’s not “guilty until proven innocent” to keep evidence if the defense can’t show it’s been compromised. As a logical extreme example, you are suggesting that courts forbid eyewitness testimony, since it’s always possible that they are mistaken or lying.
  - Tostino 5y ago
    Not GP, but I would highly prefer they give eye witness testimony much less weight than they do today.