In the infamous Duke lacrosse case, where a woman has accused 3 men of sexual assault, the defense lawyer for one of the accused is requesting the accuser’s cell phone records for the night of the alleged incident.
How common is this, for someone bringing a criminal charge to be forced to provide information that they would presumably want to keep private?
For example, if I reported a robbery at my house, and identified a suspect, would his lawyer be able to request my cell phone records (heck, email, landline, postal mail…) for the night of the robbery? Or would they have to charge me with something (say, insurance fraud) to get that information?
The accused has the right to mount a defense. In this case, the defense is attempting to prove that the accuser’s actions were not consistent with those of a woman who had been raped. In this vein, her cellphone records could be used to establish who she talked to, and when.
It has nothing to do with the fact that she reported the crime. If the suspects in the Duke case could make a case to a judge that my cell phone records were relevant to their defence, I’m sure they could subpoena them too.
So if lawyers from either side can get a subpoena approved by the judge, anything - his, hers or ours, as **DNT ** points out, could be revealed. Interesting.
Diceman, a clarification is that they are interested in her phone records from *before * the party. The phone was not in her possession after the alleged incident, it was left at the players’ house when she left with the other woman.