Of course, since this is now available to local & federal cops & prosecutors, same as any other law enforcement database, any exculpatory information will naturally be discoverable by defense attorneys.
what can be used to crawl through defendant's records to exonerate them can also be used for other purposes so care will always need to be taken with expanding processes such as this.
that out of the way, long term it would be best to standardize how this information is stored, categorized, and shared, so that exoneration in one locality can be more easily implemented in another.
" Technically yes, but they are removed when a person is found not guilty or released without being charged thus protecting the innocent and falsely accused. The mugshot sites capitalize on this by scraping the government websites and archiving them forever - until you pay a removal fee."
I don't believe anyone has an obligation to remove if someone found not guilty. The arrest happened, that's a fact. The information is public was made public by the government, that's also a fact.
From my understanding once something is made public you can't put it back in the bag. The government may do so on their own databases (Ie. Expungement, removal from government databases) but that doesn't apply to the public and especially not to publications who have first amendment right to publish public records.
I looked up the case you mentioned, it's still pending and the arguments made by the government are questionable
They have already been prosecuted and convicted. You can't "expunge" a crime off your criminal record unless you've been convicted of it. It's ok to publish people who have been convicted of a crime. That's public info. It's NOT ok, to still have it published when it's expunged from your record. The article is specifically discussing expunged crimes.
I'm not saying it does; I AM saying that it's an additional public record that can be used to bolster a case in the event of unclear ownership. And even that is "maybe" useful, hence my use of that phrase.
> the site would remove names from older stories if their records were expunged.
That seems reasonable. If the record is "expunged", you can legally say that you have not been convicted of that crime. So it can't legally be used against you (like on a job application)... so references to that crime should be removed from public view.
I'm not sure the goal of this project but collecting criminal arrest information and making it public is not going to help anyone who's been wrongfully arrested, or anyone who's had their charge expunged. I'm fairly sure that storing and exposing this data improperly without respect to subsequent court actions is in violation of the law.
Law enforcement officers and researchers could file for their case to be dismissed by providing evidence of their reason for accessing the material.
This is an argument for privacy around criminal charges since even being charged with CP can ruin someone's reputation. Many civilized countries have this. But this is a separate issue.
Sure. In the context of an already-filed lawsuit, however, that's asking for trouble. The other side has the legal right to discover relevant documents that you hold; deliberately trying to make that harder during a court case is arguably unethical, and is certainly frowned on by judges.
I think if a conviction was reported in a newspaper when it happened, I don't think that should be removed from Google, even if the conviction is subsequently "spent". Do people go through newspaper archives deleting them from the (what used to be) microfiche copies?
As long as there's an archive of the prosecutor's records, they're either public records (as most government records are, by default), or they're exempt, but the prosecutor already had access to them, and no interest is served in demanding their destruction. This isn't proprietary source code, and it isn't proprietary financial information.
This analysis is great as far as it goes, but the problem is even deeper than that. The government very well may be sitting on exculpatory information in its archives that it does not see fit to release because of "National Security" issues.
So it's not just that the government promised not to use this information as part of the people's case without recourse and then did anyway, it's that the government is selectively using this information in ways that are actively detrimental to ongoing criminal cases being fought by defense attorneys.
You can't just pick and choose, whether you're the one prosecuting or you're the one providing information for the defense. Once we allow the government to pick and choose which information gets released in which trials, the entire judicial system becomes more of a farce than it already is.
We have seriously damaged the structure of the country.
In some cases "deal with the consequences" can be very costly. Imagine some record the police need for a court case is part of that data. You've just deleted it. A drug dealer walks free. You've just let a drug dealer go free all for $500. Good luck at your performance review.
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