A ruling handed down by New Hampshire’s highest court is the latest illustration of how a defendant’s web-browsing history can be turned into criminal evidence.
The case is a disturbing one: A young mother was convicted of manslaughter in the 2010 death of her 1-year-old son who drowned after she left him unattended in a bathtub. A forensic examination of her computer showed that after running a bath for her child and another young son, she spent 42 minutes viewing and writing posts on a website that helps women raise donations for breast implants. The mother appealed her 2012 conviction to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, arguing that the trial court erred when it admitted the electronic evidence.
On Tuesday, the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld that conviction (h/t to Georgetown University’s Michael S. Frisch).
The mother had argued that the evidence ought to have been kept out because it wasn’t relevant and because “references to myfreeimplants.com created a risk that jurors would form negative ‘moral conclusions’ about her that had ‘no bearing on a fair assessment of whether she acted recklessly or negligently,’ ” according to Tuesday’s decision.
The court wasn’t persuaded.
“The defendant’s guilt rested upon the length of her computer use, not the particular websites she visited,” wrote Justice Gary Hicks .
He continued: “Given the strength of the State’s alternative evidence, the relatively inconsequential nature of the disputed evidence, and the manner in which the State used the disputed evidence, we are persuaded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that evidence relating to myfreeimplants.com did not affect the verdict.”1