How was that botched?

Seems to me the writer is just bitching about something (exigent circumstances) that he doesn't really understand.

Should the detective handled the situation differently?

Sure.

However, the approach was his error. Taking the video is both common sense and practical.

People get all jimmy rustled in these types of situations because it was a cop who pulled the trigger, but really that's not very relevant. Look at it this way, if your neighbor shot his wife, and during the course of that investigation it became known that somehow you were in possession of video of the shooting, the police would have not only a right but a duty to seize that footage as possible evidence, right?

It's the same thing here. Still an active homicide investigation, the person being investigated just happens to be a cop.

But confiscating the phone was probably not legal here.

I mean, jesus dbl, did you read that article at all?

I don't get it. If the police didn't do anything wrong, why would they need to seize the video?

To be used as evidence to prove they did nothing wrong?

More importantly, why did they feel the phone owner was likely to destroy the footage?

Yes, I did.

The phone is the storage device the evidence is stored on. If the guy never gets his phone back that's an obvious problem.

Your jimmies are rustled and you're looking for something to bitch about.

It's always a legitimate fear whenever someone doesn't want to turn it over.

In this guys came I'd say he did. He didn't protest in any way that I read.

Wat

Obv.

And flagrantly unconstitutional. If you really need footage from my phone, go get a warrant. Or maybe try politely asking me to upload the footage to you.

http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybe...manual2009.pdf if anyone wants to read

Why would they? He turned it over.

I'm familiar with how this works. You're gonna bitch, but you're getting detained because that evidence is staying secure, one way or another.

If I ask nicely and you refuse, I will detain you for the approximately 3.5 hours it's going to take to get this handled. Or you can just cooperate.

Both are legal avenues.

A lot of people want a warrant (what kind of psychopath doesn't want to turn relevant evidence of a homicide over to investigating authorities I'll never understand, but to each their own I guess) then change their mind when they realize it's not quite "on your merry way then, we'll come find you when we need you" it's much more "ok, you're coming with me, when we can get the evidence dumped you and your phone are free to go" type thing.

B. The Fourth Amendment’s “Reasonable Expectation
of Privacy” in Cases Involving Computers
1. General Principles
A search is constitutional if it does not violate a person’s “reasonable” or
“legitimate” expectation of privacy. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361
(1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). This inquiry embraces two discrete questions:
first, whether the individual’s conduct reflects “an actual (subjective) expectation
of privacy,” and second, whether the individual’s subjective expectation of
privacy is “one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’” Id. at 361.
In most cases, the difficulty of contesting a defendant’s subjective expectation
of privacy focuses the analysis on the objective aspect of the Katz test, i.e.,
whether the individual’s expectation of privacy was reasonable.

Would you guys think videotaping a cop-villain public showdown is a reasonable expectation of privacy?

Paul, see you edited, but here's the most relevant case law


US v McConney

Where exigent circumstances are defined as:

BTW, "reasonable expectation of privacy" is the wrong avenue. Of course people have a "reasonable expectation" that the police don't search through their phones, but the exigency of the circumstance (easily destroyed evidence being possessed by an unidentified, I uncooperative witness, holding vital photographic evidence relevant to an active homicide investigation) causes the states interest in justice to outweigh the typically unreasonable encroachment into the privacy of the citizen.

The kind of psychopath who enjoys due process and understands that if I voluntarily hand over the phone, you've got a green light to search everything on it, whereas with a warrant, you only get to look at the material relevant to the crime.

If it's a homicide investigation, I'm going to cheerfully wait for a few hours to make sure there's a judge involved and a paper trail.

J,

Do you think the argument that was used ~1 year ago for why cell phones were bad (people are interfering with arrests!) was any more or less bull**** than the line of reasoning that you are using now?

I am no lawyer here lol... and I wouldn't want people getting their phones jack by jack booted thugs all the time. But it seems like if you are filming evidence of crimes that your argument of reasonable expectation of privacy goes down because you are doing so in a public place.

It's not a question of expectation of privacy, it's a simple matter of my phone being my property that shouldn't be sized without due process.

This is wholly false. I built my very first child pornography case where my suspect was the suspect in a terroristic threats case.

We got a search warrant to review his phone for evidence of terroristic threats, I found a pornographic image I believed to be a minor, printed it, typed up a second warrant to search for kiddy porn, got it signed, it's been appealed and upheld twice as a perfect usage of plain sight doctrine.


The better idea is not to leave evidence of crime on your phone, particularly if you're going to intentionally turn your phone into exhibit A of a homicide investigation.

It is a question of privacy. There is a difference between your property in public and private places. Look at guns for an example.

I pulled the whole thing from a pdf file. I am looking at it from legal reasoning rather than if I agree or disagree with it.

It's not my argument. You don't like it, take it up with SCOTUS.

FWIW, in that case you are referring to, people were, in fact, interfering with that arrest.

With this one clearly they are not. You are mature enough to grasp most situations should be addressed on a case by case basis, right?

If someone's being shot by the cops, I'm going to do my best to document what happens. I'm not thrilled about getting myself involved in the situation, but it's the right thing to do.

I agree with Trolly here. Expectation of privacy comes into play in my mind when discussing whether or not you have a right to film that officer.

In the street, sure you do. When he's taking a **** in the McDonalds bathroom? Of course not.

Citizens should under normal circumstances be free from searches through their phones without cause.

This isn't "normal circumstances".

I'm just saying bro, tomorrow the police will have another reason why it is ok for them to shoot someone 40 times and then destroy any evidence that it ever happened. You can come to terms with this or continue to blindly support your own interests. I ain't hating, I'm just saying what I see.

FWIW, I was mostly referring to how it was a FELONY in MA to video tape an officer without their consent.