I’m no stranger to dealing with digital corruption. With the knowledge that I’ve gained over the past two years I tend to look at these cases involving digital evidence with a high degree of scrutiny. Take the Steve Hackney murder case for instance. I’m not a suggesting the individuals implicated in Steve’s murder are innocent. I’m simply acknowledging that they are innocent until proven guilty and that this almighty crime fighting Blair County DA Office shouldn’t need to rely on shaky digital evidence if these individuals are indeed guilty of the very serious crime of murder.
http://www.altoonamirror.com/news/local-news/2017/07/three-charged-in-2013-killing/
The first red flag in this case is that the DA Office is claiming that it took them 4 years to get the location data for the cell phones? Or was it to crack Steve’s iPhone? I’m not going to get into how Taylor Griffith’s mother is the ever so powerful Blair County Prothonotary Robin Patton and how that has a likely impact. Today we’re just going to examine the issues with digital evidence in the case and the complete lack of understanding the DA Office, particularly so called attorney Pete Weeks has, or at least claims to have, regarding cell phone data/location evidence.
In case anyone isn’t familiar with this particular case here are some primers:
http://www.altoonamirror.com/news/local-news/2013/07/city-police-investigating-man-s-homicide/
That was denied, and on March 15, 2010, Hackney was sentenced by Blair County Judge Jolene G. Kopriva to a term of 11 months and 29 days to 23 months and 28 days in the Blair County Prison on charges of aggravated assault and criminal mischief. All the other charges were dropped…
Walter didn’t know Hackney, but he said there were a lot of people in and out of the house, including many from out-of-state – New York, Delaware, and New Jersey – listing the license plates of the cars parked outside the house.
Notice how the article focuses on Hackney’s past legal issues and the allegations of having out of town folks coming and going at his residence. This is a clear attempt to smear Mr. Hackney and give the impression of well he’s probably a drug dealer so who cares that he was murdered?
A Samsung flip phone was found outside in a gravel parking area behind the home. A 911 caller reported hearing three gunshots and seeing three men running from the area down the alley.
Ruiz noted Hackney’s iPhone was password protected and had to be sent off to Apple to be accessed, but because of a backlog at the company, the phone wasn’t sent until November.
So which phone caused the four year delay? Well recently it seems to be the flip phone or phones that are in question for the case.
http://www.altoonamirror.com/news/local-news/2018/08/cellphone-tracking-methods-at-issue/
Cpl. Derek Swope of the Altoona Police Department testified Tuesday that cellphone companies provided him with information about calls and text messages transmitted by cellphones registered to Ellis and Griffith.
By entering that information into a CellHawk computer software program, Swope said he could identify locations of cellphone towers that transmitted their calls and text messages. He matched the information to a map showing the cellphone tower locations.
Defense attorney Thomas Dickey, who represents Green, has asked Judge Elizabeth Doyle to convene a Frye hearing, which would explore the science and technology behind the evidence.
Assistant District Attorney Pete Weeks is objecting to the request.
“It’s not novel science,” Weeks said. “It’s the use of a computer program.”
The computer program, Weeks said, was used to identify cellphone towers, not the specific locations of the defendants or their cellphones.
“It’s going to be used to show how they moved across the state,” Dickey said.
Let the record show that I firmly believe that Tom Dickey is a scumbag but I have to concede that he does make a very valid and critical argument here. While Weeks is content to brush off the issue as computer software so it’s perfect leave it alone, showing his ignorance as to how it all works, well what exactly is this CellHawk software and what does it do? What good would it be if what Weeks says is true? That it only determines the tower or towers the phone connected to? Of what use is that? Triangulation maybe? By itself it’s purely mathematical. However, once you start incorporating various terrain, and other features, it appears we may have stumbled upon some science to generate an accurate physical location…
You really need to read the full article to discover that Dickey’s argument is 100% spot on and Pete Weeks argument is 100% false whether he’s too stupid to know it or not.
ANIMATED VIEW
Another innovative feature of CellHawk is the Animated View.
By conjoining the static map viewpoints, investigators can animate the target phone to show a device’s travel over the course of time and space.
So if you haven’t read the entire article already, perhaps that teaser will convince you to examine what this system is capable of in it’s entirety.
Peter J. Weeks is arguing, well I’m not really sure what he’s arguing here? That this information is just some totally reliable algorithm that everyone should just accept? Just take his word for it? Do they teach non scientific data interpretation in law school these days? Data can be interpreted many ways. Are they attempting to pin point with GPS precision that Griffith and Ellis were in the vicinity of the murder scene at the time the murder took place? It’s a lot more complicated than you make it sound, Pete. I know you’re used to going after folks for stupid victimless crimes but this is a murder case. Time to get serious. Being the prosecutor you should have a thorough understanding of how this software works, or have an expert witness prepared to testify to back up your claims. The fact that the defense attorneys are looking at bringing an expert witness in on this tells me you’d better not be relying too heavily on these coordinates if you expect to get a conviction.
So there you have it folks. Hopefully Pete Weeks will try using Google next time before he goes in front of a judge and makes an ass of himself. It’s also interesting to note here that some strange things with Taylor Griffith’s past charges were exposed on the Altoona and Surrounding Area Corruption Page. The day Taylor was arrested a mysterious document suddenly materialized to rebutt these claims. It’s a good thing that Taylor’s mother, Robin Patton, doesn’t work anywhere near the courthouse and would have no way of fabricating such documents. But she definitely could have sent her daughter money while she was a fugitive from justice. I guess once you get away with forging your signature on a car title you can do whatever you want?
The Allegheny Furnace Gazette 
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