A terse exchange took place in Baltimore Circuit Court on November 17th after a defense attorney asked a police detective how cops were able to track the location of his client. Sixteen-year-old Shemar Taylor is accused of robbing a pizza delivery driver with another teen at gunpoint in April.
Detective John L. Haley, who investigated the robbery, told the court the Baltimore Police Department did a “ride-by” of Taylor’s home using “sophisticated technical equipment” to determine if a particular cellphone was in the house. Haley told the judge that officers did not use a device called a stingray. Stingrays are similar to dirtboxes -- devices used by federal law enforcement officers that mimic cellphone towers, tricking phones into revealing sensitive information.
Nondisclosure Agreement
When Haley was asked how exactly police tracked Taylor’s phone, Haley balked and said the police department has a nondisclosure agreement with the FBI over the use of the technology. “I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t,” said the detective. The judge replied: “You don’t have a non-disclosure agreement with the court.” The judge threatened to hold Haley in contempt. Rather than trying to push the issue further, the prosecution decided to withdraw the evidence gathered by the controversial method. That deals a serious blow to the case, because a.45-caliber handgun linked to the crime cannot be allowed to be used as evidence either.
Law enforcement officials in Maryland told the Baltimore Sun they are prohibited from discussing the technology they use to snare suspected criminals at the request of the federal government. That’s because dissemination of that kind of information could compromise investigations that are ongoing.
The Law Needs to Catch Up With Technology
Nathan Freed Wessler, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Baltimore Sun: “Courts are slowly starting to grapple with these issues. What we’re talking about is basic information about a very commonly-used police tool, but because of the extreme secrecy that police have tried to invoke, there are not many court decisions about stingrays.” Although the BPD refused to reveal whether they used one or not, records show they purchased a stingray in 2009 for $133,000.
Wessler said the judge was right to demand that the police fess up to using spying technology. “You can’t contract out-of-constitutional disclosure obligations. A secret written agreement does not invalidate the Maryland public records law [and] does not invalidate due process requirements of giving information to criminal defendants.”
As local police departments increasingly use sophisticated equipment that the drafters of laws could scarcely have envisioned, it seems likely conflicts will continue to develop between courts and the secretive agencies who provide these technologies for police use.
