Digital Evidence And The Criminal Justice System
These days technology has a huge impact on individuals in the community. Its development and frequent use means that the Australian society has become more reliant on the services and the functions that they have. The internet and technology are an important devices that is always used by kids for them to learn faster. The technology now offers our community a way to prevent their diseases or future diseases. To do this the professors take blood, urine and saliva samples. Later the patient is sent to a genetic counsellor who will outline the patient's potential risks of 31 cancers, 13 heart conditions and five other inherited conditions. These tests and result are done/given by Genome One. These tests are not covered by medicare and start from the price if $6000. From the technology being improved to the level where we can learn our upcoming illnesses, affects the individual mentality. As the patient learns their risk of cancer or any other medical conditions. Recently, One of the Australian writers gave an outline about the developments in DNA technology. The key cases which are involved in DNA evidence in Australia and overseas that happened between 2003 to 2014 are being used to present the interests and the potential issues that can come up when the new DNA techniques can get applied for the criminal investigations.
The techniques and applications that usually gets used for DNA evidence, explains it here, and the future developments certainly have the most important implications for the people who decide and make the policies, the practitioners and the law givers are equal for this job, the Australian criminal justice system will be needing to continue to adapt to accommodate new developments in this field. These are some cases which can help people understand : A fifteen year old schoolgirl, Lynda Mann was abducted in Narborough, England. The next day, her body was discovered raped and murdered. Three years later, another young woman met the same fate near Lynda’s resting place. Richard Buckland was arrested and confessed to the second murder only. An untested technique was applied; ‘genetic fingerprinting’ through DNA analysis. Surprisingly, there was no match in either murder, so the test was repeated.
Ultimately, Buckland was proven innocent. As to why he confessed, he claimed he had been pressured by police. Ricky McGinn was tried for the ghastly rape and murder of a 16 year old Texan girl in 1994. He had been previously accused of murder, rape and molestation. Bloody evidence including a hammer found in his car, and drops of blood on his shoes matched the victim’s type. In 2000, after years on death row, an appeal was made to Governor George W Bush to test DNA on a single pubic hair found in the victim’s vagina. Governor Bush granted a stay of execution based on a brief filed by Barry Scheck, OJ Simpson’s lawyer, and tests were made and verified. The DNA matched McGuinn, and his execution was carried out September 27, 2000.
Cyber-bullying or stalking occurings is when someone gets entertained in asultting or disturbing someone or when you make someone feel threatened and also when you start teasing someone or do a hurtful behaviour through the use of technology. this can always happen to any person at any age at all the time, and this often happens by someone unknown or someone who doesn't want you to know who they actually are which most of the time is at schools. Some of the examples in cyberbullying is when you post harmful messages or pictures or videos online, repeatedly sending unwanted messages online, sending abusive texts and emails, creating fake social networking profiles or websites that are hurtful, nasty online gossip and chat, and any other form of digital communication which can get on a serious criminal to cause hurt or to make someone feel scared and unsafe about their lives.
Here is a an case example which explains in more details: Louise is a 22 year old who works as a receptionist in Canberra. Over the past few months, she has been experiencing bullying behaviour at work, which includes threatening and offensive emails and text messages from other employees outside of work hours, and extends to threats of physical violence. She is starting to worry about her safety and feels fearful when she attends work. Robert is a professional from Sydney. He has noticed that a fake social media account has been created in his name, and is posting offensive material. He does not know who the responsible individual is or where they are located. Robert should report this matter to social media provider, as they have procedures in place for removing fake accounts and abusive messages.
The news recently was talking about one of offenders who spent 20 years of his life in prison after he got convicted of 27 charges, this included in identity theft and was demanded in San Diego for running a “revenge porn” website that has been shared online, was an discussion about the law which was surrounded by posting some indecent photographs on the internet without the agreement of the person who was been photographed. This is a case which happened against the law in NSW: One of the earliest decisions was a New Zealand case from the Wellington District Court in New Zealand on 12 November 2010. In the matter, the accused had posted a nude photograph of his ex-girlfriend on Facebook. Not only did he log into her account and upload the image, which showed her to be naked in front of a mirror, he then unblocked her privacy settings and changed her password. The image remained online for a period of 12 hours before the police and Facebook authorities shut down the account.
In conclusion we conclude that judges and courts can mostly search and look for the evidences that they need for their judgment from technology and social media such as surrounding cameras in that area, sext messages, pictures being shared, access to computers and etc.
