Editorials

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   HAVE YOUR SAY Feel strongly about something? Share it with the community by writing a letter to the editor. You’ll need to include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) We reserve the right to edit letters, but if you keep yours to 300 words or less, we won’t ask you to shorten it. If your letter is published, please wait 30 days before submitting another. Send it to: E-mail: letters@heraldnet.com Mail: Letters section The Herald P.O. Box 930 Everett, WA 98206 Fax: 425-339-3458 Have a question about letters? Contact Carol MacPherson (cmacpherson@heraldnet.com or 425-339-3472).   Published: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 High court gets it right: privacy is limited in jail Inmate Desmond Modica knew his calls to his grandmother from the King County Detention Facility were being recorded. Jail officials had posted signs, and recorded warnings greeted Modica and his grandmother at the beginning of each call. Nevertheless, the two schemed to keep Modica's wife from testifying at his trial. Modica, convicted of assaulting his wife, resisting arrest and witness tampering, later claimed those recorded conversations were private and shouldn't be allowed as evidence in court. Last week, the state Supreme Court rightly rejected Modica's claims in a 7-2 ruling. The posted signs and recorded messages left little room for Modica's alleged expectation of privacy. Such an expectation wasn't close to reasonable -- the two were even recorded discussing being recorded. Also, by sending his wife messages through his grandmother, Modica was breaching a no-contact order. The case reeks of down-and-dirty dealings. Both telecommunication and inmate rights are hot-button issues, especially in an era of technological advances and counterterrorism efforts. Put the two together and the legal-language wars are sure to begin. But this isn't the poster case for such robust arguments. If inmates want to argue for telecommunication privacy rights, let them do so when they're not intimidating their domestic violence victims. Inmates have rights to private discussions with lawyers. Plot-hatching cahoots with Granny are hardly the same thing. A fact of our criminal justice system is that those who commit crimes cede certain rights, including the right to complete privacy. Society at large needs strong electronic surveillance protection laws and we have them. Inmates have reduced privacy, and county jailhouse telephone calls fall into that area. In most cases, Washington law requires permission from both parties before a private conversation can be legally recorded. An explicit exception exists for state correctional facilities, but not those at the county level such as the King County Detention Facility -- an awkward disjuncture. This case could be a good start to clarifying those laws. The dissenting side in last week's ruling wrote that the state should stay out of private conversations between family members, criminal charges pending or not. But more importantly, the dissenters stressed the importance of safeguards such as limiting who can access the recordings and how long they can be kept. These issues are important to keep in mind. Perhaps Modica and his grandmother didn't explicitly consent to the recording; rather, they ignored its legal realities. They should have read the writing that was, quite literally, on the walls.

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