Web Activity Used in Court to Portray State of Mind

I don’t care about the case, but look at this:

“Among the details police have released is that Harris and his wife, Leanna, told them they conducted Internet searches on how hot a car needed to be to kill a child. Stoddard testified Thursday that Ross Harris had visited a Reddit page called “child-free” and read four articles. He also did an Internet search on how to survive in prison, Stoddard said. “Also, five days before Cooper died, Ross Harris twice viewed a sort of homemade public service announcement in which a veterinarian demonstrates on video the dangers of leaving someone or something inside a hot car.”

Stoddard is a police detective. It seems that they know about his web browsing because they seized and searched his computer:

…investigators confiscated Harris’ work computer at Home Depot following his arrest and discovered an Internet search about how long it would take for an animal to die in a hot car.

Stoddard also testified that Harris was “sexting” — is this a word we use in court now? — with several women on the day of his son’s death, and sent explicit pictures to one of them. I assume he knows that by looking at Harris’s message history.

A bunch of this would not be admissible in trial, but this was a probable-cause hearing, and the rules are different for those. CNN writes: “a prosecutor insisted that the testimony helped portray the defendant’s state of mind and spoke to the negligence angle and helped establish motive.”

This case aside, is there anyone reading this whose e-mails, text messages, and web searches couldn’t be cherry-picked to portray any state of mind a prosecutor might want to portray? (Qu’on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j’y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre. — Cardinal Richelieu.)

Posted on July 4, 2014 at 6:24 AM • 54 Comments