I mean, we know they can be used as evidence against you, but what if I was actually just chilling and watching Youtube videos at home? Can my spying piece of shit phone ironically save me? 🤔

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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    18 hours ago

    It wouldn’t exonerate you, unless you could prove beyond a doubt that it was you using the phone. It’d be easy, if you were planning a murder, to give an accomplice your phone and have them use it all night to cover for you. It might be able to be used in conjunction with other evidence, though, to assist in your defense.

    • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Wrong, that’s the opposite of how reasonable doubt works. It is the prosecutor’s job to prove beyond doubt that the defendent is guilty of the charges. The defendent does not need to prove they are innocent.

      If the prosecutor can’t prove that the defendent is lying about the alibi, then they’ve failed at their job.

        • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
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          16 hours ago

          It’s how the subway vigilante who choked an unstable yet unarmed homeless black man was acquitted.

      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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        16 hours ago

        It’s like saying you couldn’t have committed a crime because your TV was on at the time; it seems too flimsy to even be usable if you didn’t have some other form of evidence supporting that it was actually you using it to go along with it. I’m not a lawyer, so it’s possible I’m totally wrong, but surely no competent lawyer would expect that to work and no judge would take that as evidence on its own merits.

        • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          it seems too flimsy

          Okay, then the cops will have no problem proving you were elsewhere at the time, if its a lie. Until they’ve proved it and convinced a jury of that, you’re 100% innocent.

          Seriously, it’s not your concern as a defendent to prove your innocence. If they can’t prove you’re lying about such a flimsy alibi, then what kind of case could they possibly have against you anyway?

          • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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            16 hours ago

            The question wasn’t, “Could this be used as evidence?”, it was “Would this exonerate you?”

            Maybe we’re answering two different questions, but I don’t see this being enough to exonerate anyone without some supporting evidence to go with it.

      • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Are you sure? Sounds like how it used to be, you know, before people were taken off the streets by masked men.

        • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world
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          17 hours ago

          The commenter is still completely wrong, then. In that case there is no due process and you’re just guilty because people with guns say so.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      It’s more that it’s evidence that a reasonable person could doubt. It’s the prosecutors job to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense needs to convince a reasonable person that you might not have done it.
      If there’s other evidence phone location and activity data could be argued to be faked, but in isolation a reasonable person could doubt that someone faked their phone activity and location.

      The court isn’t interested in exonerating people, it’s only interested in arguments supporting guilt and finding holes in them. It’s why they don’t find you innocent, only “not guilty”. You don’t argue that you’re innocent, you argue that the reason they say you’re guilty is full of holes.