Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

If a phone was seized as evidence can the police go into that phones email and hack into another persons email through it? Defendant is claiming that the photos which are of a nude minor were not taken from his email but hacked into through an email (of an unrelated matter) in his inbox from this minor. Is that possible? Can police hack into your email and steal your photos through someone elses email account. Not sure if Im being clear enough. I just dont believe that it is common for that to happen but I have to rule out the possibility


Asked on 9/28/18, 7:30 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Terry A. Nelson Nelson & Lawless

No, you're not being clear, because you're not understanding the system or process.

Police either find actionable things, like child porn, ON your phone or not. They don't 'hack' into anyone else's, except: IF they really, really want to 'get' you, your problem would be that even if actionable things were earlier 'deleted' from your phone, it is not actually erased and gone, but is still possibly 'forensically' recoverable [depending upon the phone & operating system], for quite some time until being overwritten in storage memory. Plus, if you use cloud storage backup, in addition to normal phone provider backup such as Verizon, it is still also in your account servers in those places. Plus, your wireless service provider's main servers also have copies of every message and call to/from you that are recoverable by warrant -- the same with emails through all the major providers like Yahoo, Google gmail, etc.

Police wouldn't be able to go to someone else's account that they see messages to/from without a warrant specifically detailing to a judge WHAT they know they will find on that account, AND that it was sent by you. They wouldn't have such detailed info unless they already accessed the actionable things on YOUR phone or backup servers. They then could pursue charges against the other party, assuming we are talking actionable matters like child porn.

The take away for you should be an understanding that you, we, have no remaining expectation of privacy in our communications, phone, text messaging, email or web browsing.

Now, if you need the help of experienced criminal defense counsel in SoCal, feel free to contact me at 714-421-2501

Read more
Answered on 9/29/18, 4:05 pm


Related Questions & Answers

More Criminal Law questions and answers in California