Back when you and I went to school, we learned about the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
We learned about the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. And the Fifth, Sixth and 14th amendments assuring due process, fair trials and guaranteed constitutional rights for everyone. We also learned, in our system, prosecutors must prove to a jury that people are guilty — not the other way around.
To my knowledge, these amendments haven’t been repealed, nor has the doctrine “innocent until proven guilty” been revoked.
But it seems District Attorney Jeffrey Rosen has taken it upon himself to repeal the Bill of Rights. Instead of the Constitution, Stalinist Russia is Rosen’s legal lighthouse.
In the case of Anthony Becker, Rosen kept Becker’s devices, his spouse’s electronic devices, and even Becker’s mother’s computer, long after Becker was tried, convicted and served his sentence. For three years.
When Becker went to court to get these devices back, Rosen told the judge he, Rosen, intended to keep them just in case new technology cracked a locked iPhone. Or Becker got divorced and then they could compel his ex-spouse to testify.
Rosen told the Becker family they could have their devices back if they gave him their passwords — just so he could check and make sure there was no evidence of any crime. Sounds more like a deal Tony Soprano would offer if he were DA.
Think about this for a minute. Rosen wants to keep the property of people who have been charged with no crime, just in case new technology or a divorce will aid his fishing expeditions.
By that logic, Rosen can seize anybody’s property to fish for criminal evidence. Why stop at electronics? Why not search everybody’s house for unpaid parking tickets? Maybe Rosen can just arrest everybody, drag us into court and make us prove we haven’t committed any crimes.
You don’t have to be a lawyer to know American law doesn’t allow prosecutors to seize and keep property on the grounds that perhaps in the future you can go on fishing expeditions.
Folks, this is a travesty. What’s even more of a travesty is that a judge agrees with Rosen.
Rosen is DA in a county with two million people, the third-largest city in California, and which is hosting the world’s two largest sporting events in the next nine months. Instead of doing his job, protecting the people of Santa Clara County, he’s wasting public resources playing “Guess That Password.”
We can only speculate on the motive for Rosen’s obsession with Becker.
Maybe he aimed to catch a big fish and ride it into the California Attorney General’s office. Instead, he caught a minnow in the small pond of Santa Clara, whose mayor, Lisa Gillmor — part of Rosen’s mutual admiration society — wasted $6 million fighting the California Voting Rights Act. Hardly a record to take down Rob Bonta.
We can speculate about Rosen’s motives. What isn’t speculation is that his personal political plots are trumping his duty to the Constitution.
Previous Milestones:
Milestones – Gillmor vs. the Wrong Goliath – Opinion
Milestones – Gillmor’s Assured Loss – Opinion
Milestones – A Bad Penny – Opinion
