Communication Privacy Management and Digital Evidence in an Intimate Partner Violence Case

Authors

  • Fanny A. Ramirez Louisiana State University
  • Jeffrey Lane Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Keywords:

electronic communication, intimate partner violence, privacy, digital evidence

Abstract

This article uses a case study of an intimate partner violence criminal case to examine the relationship among communication privacy management, evidence acquisition and retrieval, and the use of digital evidence in criminal court. We followed the case of Krista and Alex (pseudonyms) for a period of four months from August 2017 to November 2017. Data were collected from observations in two locations: the digital forensics laboratory of the public defender who handled the case and the courtroom in which the trial took place. Findings indicate that the couple engaged in preemptive and after-the-fact privacy management strategies, which complicated the process of acquiring digital evidence and had implications for how the evidence was used at trial. The case study joins communication privacy management and legal research to show why digital evidence falls short as a “model witness” and may expose female complainants to greater privacy turbulence than male defendants.

Author Biographies

Fanny A. Ramirez, Louisiana State University

Fanny A. Ramirez is an Assistant Professor of Media Law at Louisiana State University. She holds a joint appointment with the Manship School of Mass Communication and LSU’s interdisciplinary Center for Computation and Technology. Her research examines the use of information communication technologies in the criminal justice system with an eye towards issues of discrimination, privacy, and surveillance.

Jeffrey Lane, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Jeffrey Lane is an Assitant Professor in the Department of Communication at Rutgers University. He is an urban ethnographer who writes about communication and community in the life of the inner city. His research integrates face-to-face and digital fieldwork to understand how interpersonal relations and ties between people and institutions unfold over time.

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Published

2019-10-13

Issue

Vol. 13 (2019)

Section

Articles

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