Is Reading Spouse's E-Mail a Crime? 496
Hugh Pickens writes "The Detroit Free Press reports that Leon Walker is charged with unlawfully reading the e-mail of Ciara Walker, his wife at that time, which showed she was having an affair with her second husband, who once had been arrested for beating her in front of her son. Walker says he gave the e-mails to her first husband, the child's father, to protect the boy. 'I was doing what I had to do,' says Walker. 'We're talking about putting a child in danger.' Now prosecutors, relying on a Michigan statute typically used to prosecute crimes such as identity theft or stealing trade secrets, have charged Leon Walker with a felony for logging onto a laptop in the home he shared with his wife. Prosecutor Jessica Cooper defended her decision to charge Walker. 'The guy is a hacker,' says Cooper, adding that the Gmail account 'was password protected, he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained. Then he downloaded [the emails] and used them in a very contentious way.'"
Depends on prenap (Score:2, Interesting)
If they agreed that their correspondence is not private from each other in a marriage contract, then it is not.
Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? (Score:5, Interesting)
Stupid prosecution (Score:5, Interesting)
What About The Children? (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny that when we actually SHOULD be thinking about the children something else gets in the way.
Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is unless your spouse is your property.
Actually that's a pretty good first level short summary analysis of tax law, inheritance law, bankruptcy law (depending a bit on state), several legal liability issues, some real estate and titled property law (think "car title"), a wide variety of medical ethics law such as DNR orders, and how the right of self incrimination at least somewhat extends to spouses in court. There are probably other areas but thats just off the top of my head.
Being a summary, means only an idiot would think it is the entire story for all situations, but it IS pretty much the base assumption of a heck of a lot of law, its the assumption you should start with and then refine. Following the rules of the game doesn't mean you like either the rules of the game or playing the game, it just means... you're following the rules of the game... Thats all I mean, not that I agree with it.
So, enough fact, now some opinion, which is, at the core of it, the big problem with the whole gay marriage thing, is that a basic right of many of our laws is being denied to people pretty much because "a living dude, whom pompously claims to speak for a powerful invisible unprovable guy in the sky, claims some people are bad because of how the guy in the sky made them, yet both the dude doing the talking and the guy in the sky are so incredibly weak and unimportant that they can't actually do anything about the people they don't like, so we'd like a law so policemen with guns can force them to live under our sad, twisted worldview" Not that I am showing any bias about that issue, naaaaaah.
Are MI prosecutors elected? (Score:4, Interesting)
Cooper might not be sexist, just incompetent (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Are you guys really loosing it in the U.S? (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife doesn't know any of my passwords, and I don't know any of hers. However, I do have an escrow file which she can open in the event of my death which contains them all.
She will need access to banking sites etc. when that happens, so privacy until then, and full disclosure after.
Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? (Score:3, Interesting)
This reeks of a racially motivated prosecution, quite honestly.
Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? (Score:5, Interesting)
Santa Letters in Canada are distributed to volunteers (mostly post office staff and the family thereof) who read them and write responses according to specific sets of rules and guidelines. My family does it every year since my father's a post man. It's fun.
Re:Are you guys really loosing it in the U.S? (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you do that because you wanted to or because she asked and made it into a trust issue?
Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? (Score:3, Interesting)
So no. He didn't "guess" the password. He didn't have to--she gave it to him. By this lawyer's logic, someone who enters a building via a door that has the word "PUSH" written on it is a master catburglar.
My guess is that the female prosecutor has a vicarious emotional stake in this case. The prosecutor herself likely has either gone through a contentious divorce, and/or got caught cheating herself.
If I were the defense counsel, I'd have investigators looking more at the *prosecutor's* past marital/relationship history, rather than the defense's client or the prosecution's witness. There's probably some dirt there that makes the pursuit of this case in this manner by the prosecutor make a lot more sense.
Strat
Re:Is opening a spouses mail a crime? (Score:4, Interesting)
Again, don't be an ass.
Is this compatible with a technical discussion about law ?
Absolutely! The best laws are ones where common sense prevails, and where somebody being an ass is laughed out of the courtroom. If you can clearly demonstrate to a judge that the opposing counsel is being an ass, they most certainly have proven that they have lost the argument.
Fortunately it is the person who responds with name calling because they lack other tools to demonstrate the benefits with their side of the argument who most often loses, but that isn't always the case as is most certainly true here. The advise to not "be an ass" is certainly most appropriate in this context, although the point could have been proven without such language.
Certainly a spouse is given extra consideration in such a context like reading mail that isn't normally afforded even a supervisor or landlord. If your employer can read your e-mail with impunity, the same argument can be used with a spouse. This prosecution, if successful, has some major legal consequences if it gets anywhere near to common law status for more than a single courtroom.