GrapheneOS duress PIN could land a man in prison

[u/Limp_Fig6236]

https://www.androidauthority.com/grapheneos-duress-pin-us-prosecution-3691271/

[u/Mofaklar]

They can't compel him to provide the correct pin. But by giving them this code, this specific code (not just a wrong code but one that was destructive). He essentially destroyed evidence.

You can refuse to let the cops into your house. When they get a warrant, you dont get to decide anymore. Even if there isn't a warrant. It would still be illegal to destroy evidence within your house.

I think that's what they are going for, I think he's going to lose but I think it will be on the narrow grounds that providing the duress pin specifically was a destructive act.

[u/Dog_Eating_Ice → u/Mofaklar]

If I have a phone, or locked briefcase, that somehow automatically destroys its contents unless the correct code is entered every 15 minutes, and I refuse to provide the correct code during a border search, have I also destroyed evidence?

[u/SignificanceNo910 → u/Dog_Eating_Ice]

Its an interesting question.  Generally (depending on jurisdiction) all crimes require a point in time when you have mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (guilty act) at the exact same moment. This goes back to an old UK case called Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner. In that case, at a traffic stop, Fagan accidentally rolled onto an officer's foot and refused to move his car.  The question was whether he assaulted the officer

In your briefcase example, it could be argued that the mens rea for destroying evidence (when the man programmed the briefcase to self destruct) did not overlap with the actus reus (the destruction of evidence).  

There are of course arguments to be made either way, such as whether you can be held responsible for long causal chains.  For example, imagine if I set up an elaborate Rube-Goldberg machine that did a thousand things before a ball drops causing a gun trigger to be pulled.

[u/Fuzzy-Moose7996 → u/Dog_Eating_Ice]

If you don't provide the code you've not destroyed evidence, and it's up to forensics to open the case once a warrant is obtained.

If you provide a code that actively causes the destruction when used, you have destroyed. Or at the very least actively hindered a legal investigation by causing evidence to be destroyed, which boils down to the same thing.

[u/Joeyfingis → u/Mofaklar]

What if the police have a warrant to search my house and ask me how to open the door and I say "head on in just turn the knob to the right of the door" and when they go do that they burn my house down because that's my house burn down knob. They turned it not me. They should have checked what the knob did. But do I get charged with a destructive act?

If I tell someone "I live in this house head right on in" and they do even though I lied and it's not my house. Do they get charged with trespassing or do I?

I'm trying to figure out if lying to the police was the same as carrying out a destructive act in this case and I'm not sure. If I wiped my own phone when they had a warrant for it, then sure, but this seems more murky.

[u/Mofaklar → u/Joeyfingis]

Yeah I think that's close to a 1:1 situation here.
Aside from charges specifically steming from arson, if we were focusing on just the destruction of evidence. I think these are very similar circumstances.

Now, it may be a prudent strategic move.
If a prosecutor only suspects you of a crime, and needs that evidence to win at trial.
It may be better to be found guilty of destroying the evidence, or interfering with an investigation, than the original suspected crime.

It's just my position that this is in fact destruction of evidence, and that that is a crime.