You really should, did the OP teach you nothing about responsiblity? 
I guess the question I have is, did the prosecution violate his son’s privacy when they used the EDR to prove that his son was lying about the speed?
Yes, but he’d get a nice plaque and maybe even a trophy for his cell. 
Nah. You’d have no expectation of privacy in the speed you are travelling along a public street. It’s no more a violation of his privacy than if they’d caught the incident on a camera mounted on a stoplight at an intersection.
That’s a legal question, which I’m pretty sure was or will be brought up in court. The pitting, however, is about the kids trying to escape responsibility for their grossly negligent actions by perjuring themselves.
The article addresses some of the concerns people have regarding the monitoring of black boxes in cars. I know that I do not want to be monitored. If I were, they would find me guilty of maybe going 10, maybe 15, mph over the speed limit on an open road. I certainly might take on monitoring if it meant a significant drop in my insurance rates, but I’d like the choice of opting out (a choice not giving when phone records are turned over to NSA or overseas calls are monitored).
Could it be argued that the black box in your own vehicle violates your right against self-incrimination?
If I’d have been busted drag racing at 140 mph, I’d have begged the cops to send me to prison, because I’d have been way more afraid of my parents.
Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I never drag raced at 140 mph, and this fuckwit did.
D_ODDS:
It may be brought up, but it’s not a great argument.
A person may claim a Constitutional right to privacy under either the Fourth or Fifth Amendments, but the Fifth only applies to compelled testimony so it’s a non-starter here. Moreover, if the authorities have obtained a search warrant prior to downloading the data (the article doesn’t say), any privacy argument the driver has is probably hamstrung.
Even without a warrant, in order to assert a 4A right to privacy, the driver much first show he has a reasonable expectation of privacy either (a) in his car (looking at the issue broadly) or (b) in the data collected by the EDR (looking at the issue narrowly. But courts have repeatedly found that people have a deminished, though not eliminated, expectation of privacy in automobiles. And while a person may have a reasonable expectation regarding, say, the crack pipe in the glove compartment, it is unlikely the courts would find the person to have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding data that is obtainable by other means, like watching the car scream by at 100+ miles per hour. Even if a reasonable expectation of privacy is found, and even if a warrant is not obtained, one of the most well-known exceptions to the warrant requirement is the so-called “automobile exception,” when, as her, the officers have probable cause to believe the automobile contains evidence that a crime has been committed.
In short – very very unlikely any right to privacy would be found in EDR data.
No, because the data collected by the device isn’t collected by you or for you but only reflects an action done by you, so it isn’t you incriminating yourself.
Thanks, Jodi.
Mr. Slade, his child, and his friend are still fuckwits, just fuckwits without a legal edge. Mr. Slade should share his childrens sentence for irresponsibility, poor parenting, and for setting a horrible example.
You never would have seen me racing at 140 mph when I was 17.*
*Of course, when I was 17 I was driving a Dodge Dart that could only reach 40 going downhill with a tailwind.
Oh, total fuckwits, agreed. And it actually is kind of an interesting legal question: If technology outpaces imagination, how can we ever be said to have an “expectation of privacy” in some technology it never crossed our minds even existed, much less that it may be used against us? Yet surely we don’t lose our privacy just because we haven’t thought of all the ways it might be invaded.
IMO, the key here, and what makes the argument a loser, is that the same information is obtainable by mere observation. Therefore, although the means of collecton may be novel, the information itself is open and obvious. The better argument from this angle is not that you have an expectation of privacy in the information (speed) but that you have an expectation of privacy as to part of the means of collection (your car). But there you run into a long line of cases dealing with a diminished expectation of privacy in automobiles. I think the answer could be different if we weren’t dealing with the automobile exception.
Look:
- Teenaged boys with access to fast cars drive recklessly and without due regard for the safety of others.
- Parents will ultimately go to the mat to try to protect their children from harm and even serious reprocussions of their actions regardless of what the circumstances are. No one ever stops loving their kids. After negligent homicide, drinking and driving, murder, or when they turn out to be child molestors.
Now, as reasonable members of society we know that this kid should be punished (I would guess 5-10 years of prison if it were up to me and given what I know so far) but parents, no matter how much they want to or do push their children to be responsible members of society, will just sit there and allow their children to be put in prison. They’ll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on defense and use every possible ratonalization possible to justify it.
This isn’t so much about over-permissive parents as it is about the fundamental psychology of the parent-child relationship that has been true for the last five millenia.
D_Odds, if daddy bought you a car capable of going 140 MPH for your 16th birthday, I assure you that you would have at some point during your 17th year of life used it in a blatatly reckless manner. If not, you would have been the only 17 year old in 145,000 17 year olds that wouldn’t have done so.
Um, not if the black box was in someone else’s car.
Oooookay. After reading the article again, it looks as though the Vette owner may have been implicated by his own box (not to mention the tone of the entire article). I now see what you mean.
Apologies.
I like the discussion of legal questions, but I started another thread in Great Debates for that: “Should your car keep an eye on you?” And I really hope lots of people engage in a spirited debate over that question, because I honestly don’t have an answer and want to know what other people think. This thread, however, was started just to talk about what a fuckstick the kid’s dad is – or, if you’re more inclined, what a total asswipe Sunrazor is for not sympathizing with the fuckstick and his spoiled kid.
You’re 100% right. Heck, I drove my Dart as recklessly as one could at 30 mph!* That’s why a parent with more than 1 working brain cell does not get a 17 y.o. boy a car than can go 140mph, rather than using their child’s vehicle as another example of conspicuous consumption. And it is why, when I become Lord High Emperor, such parents will share their child’s fate.
*I kid. My Dart could reach highway speeds, and if it was a long trip, it might have reached them before I got to my exit.
Yep, I can only imagine what would have happened if I crashed my Ford Festiva into a Jeep at top speed.
thump
Jeep driver: What was that?
Passenger: I dunno, did you run over a squirrel?
Me: Aw crap, his trailer hitch scraped the hell out my hood.
Actually, it’s kind of interesting to think about this in two other thought-modes:
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What if the driver of the car had been poor, no-account “trailer trash,” driving an old, rebuilt Ford pickup? Would the situation be any different?
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What if the kid was an ordinary, middle-class teener toolin’ around in a perfectly ordinary Chevy?
Wang-Ka, while both of those vehicles are able to be driven recklessly, neither will be topping 100 or drag racing. My ire, and I suspect others, is that the father and his children would have gotten away with murder, and he’s griping that they were forced to tell the truth and take responsibility for murder.
If the kid plowed a Vette into a Ford pickup, the driver of the Ford likely would have lived. Lousy to maintain they might be, but Ford F-150s are tough!