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Don't Google "How To Commit Murder" Before Killing
An anonymous reader alerts us to a murder trial in New Jersey in which Google and MSN searches were used against a woman accused of killing her husband. In the days before the murder, prosecutors say the defendant searched for "How To Commit Murder," "instant poisons," "undetectable poisons," "fatal digoxin doses," and gun laws in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Her husband was killed with a gun procured in Pennsylvania. The crime occurred in 2004; of course, people now know to be careful about their searches.
Note that the police and prosecutors apparently didn't need to subpoena Microsoft or Google for search records, but rather recovered the search URLs from the browser history.
TFA mentions that computers were seized from the defendant and not Google or MSN (the other search engine mentioned). So no, this wasn't a case of google keeping records, but the defendants computer.
Maybe the title should read: "If Google'ing 'how to commit murder' before killing, throw harddrives into volcano".
IANAL, so could someone explain to me how the heck something like this could be admitted as evidence?
IAALS, so this might not be entirely the best answer, but it seems to me the hardest thing will be authenticating the data. Barring a first party admission (who the hell would admit to this?), Google would have to authenticate the search terms, the IP would have to be authenticated as that of the defendant's at that time. So you'd have to subpoena the records from Google, authenticate them, and in they come.
But remember, admitting something as evidence doesn't mean it's not rebuttable. You can bring in an expert to talk about how its cloudy that the IP was hers, etc. In the end, the finder of fact (the jury) determines whether or not its credible. The rules of evidence only keep out the stuff that's really irrelevant, overly prejudicial, hearsay, etc.
Now maybe a real lawyer will correct me if I'm missing something.
None of those things will remove the evidence from the PC you used (using the library's computer will, though, assuming the library doesn't keep records). What you actually need is Tor and full-disk encryption (or shred(1), or thermite...).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Law student :)
But, oddly enough, I've seen what the courts allow the RIAA & MPAA to submit as evidence (server logs with IP addresses) to prosecute people and, at least in those cases, that's all the evidence they need!
Okay, to explain what has probably been said on slashdot a million times already, the burden of proof in a CIVIL case, like the suits by the RIAA and the MPAA, is considerably lower then the burden of proof in a CRIMINAL case. Now, I cannot recall a case yet, where the RIAA or MPAA have actually won in court. Most of them, as I recall, are settled out of court for considerably less, or the RIAA drops the suit when someone fights back hard enough and starts poking holes in their flaky evidence.
Considering this, am I shocked that a legally requisitioned computer can be submitted & used as evidence? Not really--though I should be. It's a shame what the "Justice System" is becoming these days.
Why should you be shocked? If you commit a crime and are charged with said crime, why shouldn't a legally obtained warrant allow a jurisdiction to seize your computer and review it for potential evidence? If anything, the courts would be keeping up in that regard, instead of keeping notes or writing messages on paper, criminal might be keeping track of information on their personal computer. In this particular case, they obviously determined that she was searching the internet and found out WHAT she was supposedly searching for. It might not convict her by itself, but it would show a level of pre-meditation, if the jury sees it that way.
I guess I could stretch this and look for people who search for "to build a fire" and charge them with all unsolved arsons in their area. Boy scouts & Jack London fans beware!
You have no probable cause. This sort of blanket searching would never fly in most courts and might only be allowed under convoluted items in the PATRIOT ACT. You would first have to suspect the individual of arson, have sufficient evidence to get a court issued warrant, find enough evidence on the PC to get a subpoena for the information from Google, and subsequently add evidence to the case. I am willing to bet this wasn't the beginning of their case.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
I read TFA. It states that a forensic analyist went through at least one of eight computers that the defendant is suspected of using. The one in question is from her home, if I recall. If the report is accurate (probably close enough) and complete (who knows), neither her ISP nor Google were involved in determining what the person using that computer was searching for.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Well, having had my computer taken by the cops as "evidence", I've learned several important lessons:
1) The cops have _no_ sense of humor. Thanks to Fark, I had This, and This in my cache. Apparently, I'm now into terrorism and child trafficing.
2) EFS doesn't help. Microsoft's Encrypting File System doesn't encrypt anything that can't be broken in seconds with the password (and usually minutes/hours without).
So, especially for farkers, get TrueCrypt. It's free, and open-source. Then, get TCTEMP. It makes it so your temporary files encrypted with a random key. Restart, and they all go "poof". Then get TCGina. You get to encrypt your home directory (and history, documents, etc.) - it automatically mounts it when you login.
Use AES/SHA-1 as your encryption scheme, and pick a good password. If you're _really_ paranoid, grab Shred Agent (wipes files you delete automatically), and Distrust (a firefox addon that automatically deletes your history and cache for you). Nobody is _ever_ going to be recovering your data (even you, if you forget your password).
If you are looking for a quick, easy, fool-proof way to wipe your hard drive so _nobody_ will _ever_ recover _anything_ from it, make yourself a DBAN disk. Easy to use, and it gets the job done right.
Actually, she didn't have the savvy to flush her cache.
Actually, she'd have done much better to degauss her hard drive after the dirty deed.
Actually, she'd have done much better not to have killed anyone in the first place.
As a detective friend of mine once said, "Yer criminals'r mostly stupid - it's why they're criminals."
sigs, as if you care.
It'd be pretty hard to make a if the Google searching was all there was, because while its evidence from which the jury could infer that a particular person did the search, any one of the searches alone wouldn't prove much.
OTOH, when a number of computers you have access to are used to search for certain things that might relate to plans to commit a murder, when a doctor that is also your lover writes a suspicious perscription that might be used to facilitate the murder that is filled just before the murder at a location of a pharmacy that you had just done a location search for, when the person killed is your husband that you've been having violent conflicts with immediately prior to the murder, then its not just about the searches anymore.
Are the standards for admissibility of evidence lower in civil court than they are in criminal court? I don't know, personally, but I'd be interested the answer. Any lawyers reading this? The standards for admissibility are the same. The RIAA decisions you probably have seen are not trial admissibility decisions, however. The ones I'm aware of are at from the motion to dismiss / summary judgment stage, where the judge usually decides if there's any "material facts" in dispute. (Huge oversimplification.) While evidence presented at the summary judgment stage needs to be admissible, this is procedurally a much different animal than the presentation of evidence to a jury.
And I reckon that it was simply checking the browser history, whilst this evidence is circumstantial (eg was she using computer at time etc) it really is a kicker regards proving intent/pre meditation :-)
No, they aren't. The standard (probable cause) for both is the same.
During the actual search of the house, yes, one may be deprived of the use of it. Usually, evidence that may be seized from the house is not integral to and may be seized without seizing the house itself; this less the case with your other example (cars) which, when evidence is found during a search, will more likely be seized themselves, and even less the case with computers, which if evidence is found on them, the physical evidence itself will often be inseparable from fairly critical components of the computer.
That would suck.
However, that's not what happened here. The searches aren't the only basis for the prosecution; the prior history of violence between the victim and the defendant, the affair, the suspicious prescription written by the defendant's lover and filled at a location of the pharmacy for which the defendant a location search immediately before the prescription was filled and immediately before the murder, etc.
In Italy we had a similar story.
A guy committed murder and part of the evidence (not the only one of course) was a record of his searches containing phrases like "woman murdered near river XXX" and similars BEFORE the media reported the news.
Generally, first is with intent to kill - premeditation. That can be hard to prove, depending where you're tried. Just because someone heard you mutter "i'd love to pound that guys head in" a year earlier, may not be enough.
I can see here, researching on the internet, shows intent, and a really cold character.
Commission of a murder, during the comission of another felony is first degree by default. I think the logic goes: by robbing that liquor store, you showed a disregard for the clerks life, and therefore a certain willingness to take it, or by fleeing the police in the car, you show a willingness to run over the 6 year old crossing the road, etc.
Second degree would be maybe shaking a baby to death, beating someone to death. It gets hairy here, splitting between 2nd degree murder and manslaughter. Manslaughter I understand as accidental, but due to some negligence on your part. 2nd degree murder is accidental, but due to actions taken on your part.
It is confusing. It's easier just not to kill people.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
As a former prosecutor in Louisiana, I can explain this one for you. To begin with, understand that the penalty for Murder 2 is life in prison, no parole. And here in Louisiana, that sentence means you will die in prison. For Murder 1, the penalty is either the death penalty or life in prison.
We don't use the concept of "premeditation" in Louisiana, we use "intent." If you kill somebody, and you had an intent to kill them, that's Murder 2, even if that intent was formed the second you pulled the trigger. You don't have to "lie in wait" or anything like that. In a poisoning case, the only defense, beyond just I didn't put the arsenic in his soup" would be "I had no idea that was arsenic, it came out of the jar labelled 'sugar.'" It's also Murder 2 if you kill someone in the course of committing another crime, such as armed robbery. Say you accidentally drop the gun while you're pulling the robbery, and it goes off and kills somebody. You didn't intend to kill the guy, you didn't pull the trigger, but you did kill him in the course of a robbery, so that's Murder 2.
Murder One is a murder where you intended to kill someone AND one of several aggravating circumstances is present. If you shoot a cop and kill him, that's Murder 1. If you're pulling a robbery AND you intentionally shoot the store clerk, that's Murder 1 (if you had only accidentally shot the store clerk, it would be Murder 2).
You can read the law for yourself:
- First Degree Murder
- Second Degree Murder
Note the use of the phrase "intent to kill or cause great bodily harm." That's in there to prevent the murderer from claiming "yeah, I shot him, but I only wanted to wound him in the arm, I didn't mean to shoot him in the heart."According to the article, they got the search results from her computer. Not Google nor MSN.