Question

A murder in a downtown office building has been widely publicized. You’re a police detective and receive a phone call from a digital forensics investigator employed by the police department. His name is Gary Owens, and he says he has information that might relate to the murder case. Gary says he ran across a few files while investigating another case at a company in the same office building. Considering the plain view doctrine, what procedures might you and he, as public officials, have to follow? Write a one-page paper detailing what you might do.

Answer 1

Examining a murder is a matter for the law enforcement. We have to remember all facets of murder whenever investigating the case. First, we'll try to collect all of the victim's details. If we get a contact from the computer forensic investigator Mr. Gray Owens who looked through the business's records to find out the facts of the killing so there was a privacy breach.

The business was based in the same place the murder happened in.

Secondly, after receiving the reports from the prosecutor, we should tell our senior about this knowledge and get a warrant from the court for further investigation, since there are chances that the breach of the policy leads to the person's murder.

And, instead we're going to make the corporate investigator a lawyer by getting all the specifics of the policy violation and trying to find out the person who breached the policy. The employer has the right to access any of the employee's program or application on its computer. The employee has no right to privacy in the company, if he / she works on the work computer.

Answer 2

Considering the plain view doctrine, which is an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, is applied by law enforcement officers and courts who can seize evidence of a crime without a warrant, if the officer observes the evidence in plain view.

Step-by-step explanation:

For any digital information related to a murder case that has been seized under the plain view doctrine to be used to convict you of a crime, has to comply with three conditions:

1. The digital evidence must be in out in the open, and easily observable by the officer, this is what "plain view" refers to.

2. The officer must have a legal right to be where he got the information related to the case.

3. The 'incriminating' character of the information must be a clear hint of the murder to fall under the plain view doctrine and the officer´s experience will help him determining whether the information is evidence or not, upon probable cause related to a crime.