Man Faces Criminal Charges for Reading Wife's E-Mail

daisypusher wrote: I do agree that if the genders were reversed, the the case would not even be prosecuted, since the DA would decide that he/she could not get a conviction.

you don't seriously believe that do you? judges and juries wouldn't convict? so not worth the d.a.'s time?

Keep in mind that this is a Gmail account. Therefore it is possible that no account information was stored on the local shared property computer. It's not really much different, than say a student hacking into a school's system, looking up everyone's grades, or logging in to 285Bound under another's nick and posting.

mtntrekker wrote: do you really think the d.a. will throw it out? i know the d.a. and courts would rather not deal with some stuff, but sometimes they do have to look at the evidence. i would think he would need permission unless it was his property. if it is thrown out, i'm betting she is planning on proving in a civil action that it was her property and he didn't have permission.

I guess it would depend on whether or not the computer was purchased before or after they were married. If after, it would be like any other piece of marital property, a shared ownership. If one or the other brought it into the union as existing property, there might be a case that it remained the property of that individual. Would also depend upon how the access was paid for I suppose, whether out of joint funds or out of individual accounts, to determine whether it was her account, his account or a shared account accessed from an individually owned our jointly owned computer.

Realistically, it would be pretty hard to prove that a person would expect that their privacy in electronic correspondence was protected from their husband anymore than they could expect that a financial account was similarly protected. If a spouse who is not on the deed of the house can claim half interest in it should the two of them separate and the house was acquired after the marriage, I fail to see where that logic would not also apply to another piece of property within the marriage, even if the files contained on it are password protected.

And like I said, if successful, there are going to be an awful lot of significant others being arrested for peeking at call/text records as a result. If a computer shared by two married people can be the subject of a federal offense, how much easier would it be to prove the same charge when the property in question is a smart phone and the two people are not married?

mtntrekker wrote:

daisypusher wrote: I do agree that if the genders were reversed, the the case would not even be prosecuted, since the DA would decide that he/she could not get a conviction.

you don't seriously believe that do you? judges and juries wouldn't convict? so not worth the d.a.'s time?

I stated that the DA would not prosecute the case. Here is one example:

http://www.bostoncriminalattorneyblog.com/2009/02/massachusetts_supreme_court_se_1.html


There are many reasons why prisons are filled with mostly men and this is one of them, along with longer sentencing times.

She kept very simple passwords and she left them in notes and books throughout the house.”

Based on this, he didn't just guess the password, by leaving them in easily accessible areas throughout the house, I would say that she had less expectation of privacy from her husband. I know that for some accounts, my husband and I freely share our passwords with each other. For my work accounts, however, he has no idea what I use.

Maybe entrapment is invovled. lol She wanted him to find out and then have the government prosecute... and take him out of the picture.

mtntrekker wrote:

daisypusher wrote: I do agree that if the genders were reversed, the the case would not even be prosecuted, since the DA would decide that he/she could not get a conviction.

you don't seriously believe that do you? judges and juries wouldn't convict? so not worth the d.a.'s time?

I happened to come across another example. In this case, UK judges are instructed to give women shorter sentences.

Judges ordered to show more mercy on women criminals when deciding sentences

By Steve Doughty
Last updated at 8:26 AM on 11th September 2010

Judges have been told to treat female criminals more leniently than men when deciding sentences.

New guidelines declare that women suffer disadvantages and courts should ‘bear these matters in mind’.

The rules say women criminals often have poor mental health or are poorly educated, have not committed violence and have children to look after.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311004/Judges-ordered-mercy-women-criminals-deciding-sentences.html


There are both anti-male and anti-female statements in this article. Where is the equality? It is so bad a person expects to read that a woman committed the crime because Aunt Flow was visiting. Maybe it was stated, but removed from the final document. :Koolaid:

Crazy! Like it was right for the woman to cheat in the first place!?! I hope he gets off. Prosecuted that is.