Despite all the investigation, public outrage and scrutiny over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, at least one major piece of evidence has not yet been thoroughly analyzed: his cellphone.
Police found it at the scene the night Trayvon was shot, its battery dead. Authorities tried but failed to download data from the phone, then asked his father, Tracy Martin, for the security code so they could unlock it. They didn't get the code and turned the phone over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
A crime-lab specialist there had only limited success accessing the messages, photos and other information on the phone, according to attorneys for defendant George Zimmerman.
Without the security code, FDLE analyst Stephen Brenton told attorneys, he could not unlock the phone and download information from its primary data-storage site: the chip built into the phone, said defense attorney Mark O'Mara.
Brenton was able to download files from two removable-storage devices in the phone: its SIM card and SD card, O'Mara said. But the information on its internal chip remains a mystery. It could be revealing, according to O'Mara and co-counsel Don West.
The phone is a 2-year-old Huawei U8150 smartphone, a model manufactured in China and sold by T-Mobile as the "Comet" and which shoots video and photos and provides Internet access plus conventional cellphone and texting features.
It could be a font of information about Trayvon, the unarmed black 17-year-old that Zimmerman killed Feb. 26 in Sanford. Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder. He says he acted in self-defense.
In addition to revealing whom the high-school junior talked with and when and what text messages he sent and received, it could be an electronic record of what he thought — captured in email, videos and photos — and the websites he visited.
The information downloaded by Brenton at the FDLE lab "tells me the last few phone calls, but that's about it," O'Mara said. "It looks like there is other information that I should have."
Dave Kleiman, a computer forensic technician and expert witness with Computer Forensics LLC in West Palm Beach, has no connection to the case and has not analyzed the phone, but he said there may be ways to get to the information from the built-in memory chip.
The phone uses an Android operating system, owned by Google, and Google may be able to bypass the security system and retrieve it, Kleiman said. A technician also could pull the chip out of the phone and analyze it, considered by some to be an extreme step because it would destroy the phone.
It's not clear why Brenton at FDLE went no further than he did. FDLE did not respond to an email asking about the process, and neither did the office of Special Prosecutor Angela Corey, which is handling the case against Zimmerman.
Brenton analyzed the phone March 26. It appears that no one has tried since then to pull more information from it, O'Mara said. He said he would press Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson at a Dec. 11 hearing to order the state to provide more information about what's on the phone.
The phone provides a link to one of the prosecution's most important witnesses, a 16-year-old Miami girl who told investigators that she was on the phone with Trayvon in the minutes leading up to the shooting.
In an interview recorded by an attorney for Trayvon's family and ABC News, she said a man was following Trayvon, that he was scared, that Trayvon asked, " 'What are you following me for?' " and she heard the man say, " 'What are you doing around here?' "
The phone then went dead, she said.
The phone is registered to Trayvon's father. According to police records, on March 1, an analyst with the Seminole County Sheriff's Office told Sanford police he needed the security code to unlock the data on the phone.
Sanford police Detective Doris Singleton contacted the carrier, T-Mobile, asking for the code. The company told her they could get to the information if they had the PIN to the account. On March 5, Sanford police Sgt. Joe Santiago asked Tracy Martin for the PIN, according to a police report. Tracy Martin said he'd check with his attorney.
Martin never got back with police. At a March 8 news conference in Orlando, Tracy Martin told reporters he would not help police download information from the phone.
When questioned last month about Tracy Martin's decision to withhold the phone's PIN from authorities, family attorney Benjamin Crump said, "I don't know anything about that. We're going to do anything prosecutors say we should."
No comments:
Post a Comment