Hamilton County DA's office seeking new criminal investigator to focus on cellphone, digital evidence

Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston gives his opening statement to the jury before Judge Andrew Freiberg during Tim Boyd's extortion trial in Judge Don Poole's courtroom in the Hamilton County-Chattanooga Courts Building on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018 in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston gives his opening statement to the jury before Judge Andrew Freiberg during Tim Boyd's extortion trial in Judge Don Poole's courtroom in the Hamilton County-Chattanooga Courts Building on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018 in Chattanooga, Tenn.

The Hamilton County District Attorney's Office is aiming to hire a new criminal investigator to focus on obtaining and preparing cellphone and other digital evidence for violent cases in court.

"We've seen this trend for several years where cellphone technology can be almost as helpful as DNA and fingerprints," said District Attorney General Neal Pinkston, "and the more technology increases, the law and court opinions have become stricter and more complex on how to obtain that information."

The position, which is estimated to cost $85,000 to $90,000 between salary, insurance and benefits, is part of Pinkston's proposed yearly budget. It will not be filled until approved by the Hamilton County Commission. In addition to the criminal investigator position, Pinkston also requested another roughly $110,000 from the county for salary increases for his prosecutors, who are funded by a combination of state and county funds.

The goal, Pinkston told commissioners Wednesday, is to keep salaries competitive so the District Attorneys's Office can retain competent prosecutors instead of losing them to a just-as-lucrative private practice or firm.

In a separate interview Thursday, Pinkston said the proposed criminal investigator would focus on gang violence, homicides, armed robberies and any other crimes involving cellphone and other forensic evidence. To counter uncooperative or flaky witnesses, prosecutors and other law enforcement have relied in recent years on surveillance cameras and body-worn police cameras. At the moment, there's 29 police cameras around the city, another 300-something city cameras on light poles and more when counting private businesses.

Cellphone data has also been part of prosecutions, too. As part of a felony murder case against a Chattanooga man accused of murdering his cab driver, Nathan Deere, in 2012, prosecutors introduced cellphone tower records to show the accused, Christopher Padgett, was in the area around the time of the killing. Conversely, in a different post-conviction case, defense attorneys and advocates have asserted that cellphone records suggest Unjolee Moore wasn't near the scene of a 2010 murder at the British Woods Apartments.

Pinkston said part of the potential investigator's role is to help prepare cellphone data for presentation in court and to navigate the legal precedents surrounding this greyer area of digital law.

In recent years, state and federal courts nationwide have wrestled with the question of how broadly authorities can search a person's social media account. While authorities have previously argued that citizens have voluntarily agreed to give away their information to a third-party, privacy advocates have countered that Fourth Amendment protections should guard against overly broad searches. Elsewhere, in June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that authorities generally must obtain a warrant to gain access to cell tower records that show a virtual timeline and map of a person's whereabouts, according to news accounts.

Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow him on Twitter @zackpeterson918.

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