4 ms·
The examples you give aren't great. I don't think there's anything you can be found guilty of for reading someone else's threatening comment on Facebook or else
by Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
The examples you give aren't great. I don't think there's anything you can be found guilty of for reading someone else's threatening comment on Facebook or elsewhere. With the SMS the critical thing is the implication that you're guilty of something - whether you'd read it or not doesn't matter.
To look at the idea further though, these things are best thought of as fishing trips. It's very unlikely anything on your phone is going to directly incriminate you, it's more likely that it's going to point to involvement in a crime and provide the police either with further lines of enquiry (investigating the person who sent the message) or a reason to carry out a more thorough investigation of you (and potentially grounds for a warrant).
On it's own it would it seem that anything of this sort would be, at best, circumstantial evidence.
(All of this assumes that it wouldn't be struck down as unconstitutional - state laws obviously not being able to overturn the constitution).
- tptacek 15y agoYou should be careful when you talk about "circumstantial evidence". There's a very pervasive meme that circumstantial evidence is somehow invalid, but that has never, ever been the case.
- Tyrannosaurs 15y agoIt depends where in the world you are. In the US it's very much second class evidence (though not invalid) but in, say, Italy, it's far more common to build a successful case based largely on circumstantial evidence.