Is this incriminating evidence or what? June 2, 2005 6:34 AM   Subscribe

If this AskMe question were deleted and purged as suggested in the thread, would that be destroying evidence given the Texas state laws as described therein?
posted by mischief to Bugs at 6:34 AM (7 comments total)

Um, ask a lawyer in Texas?

Seriously, WTF?
posted by felix betachat at 6:47 AM on June 2, 2005


To cover his ass in that particular case, Fearless Leader should just keep a local copy of the thread. No evidence destroyed, just not available to the public/Google anymore.
posted by grouse at 8:35 AM on June 2, 2005


The thread is not evidence of anything. The poster merely says that he believes a child is being dropped off at the same home as the offender. As far as I know, that is not a crime. (Maybe it would be if the offender is not allowed to be near children, but we don't know that.)

The rest is all speculation, not evidence of any fact.

If Matt is worred about it, grouse is right -- just archive the thread. But that seems like overkill to me.
posted by Mid at 9:56 AM on June 2, 2005


"If Matt is worred about it, grouse is right -- just archive the thread."

He's done that in the past. I can't recall when he said so or what the incident was. But I think that anytime something on mefi (or wherever) is legally questionable, you'd want to avoid the possibility of making the mistake of destroying evidence. I doubt that you'd be prosecuted if it were done innocently, but still. Easy enough to take some sort of snapshot, archive it, and then make the functional change/deletion.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:56 AM on June 2, 2005


I suppose. But the more he does that sort of thing, the more he is vulnerable to the charge: you saved all that stuff, but not this stuff, why? Sometimes better to save no stuff at all.
posted by Mid at 12:07 PM on June 2, 2005


Leave it. It's useful information and unfortunately not an uncommon situation.

I'll gladly defer to a lawyer, but IMO it's not evidence of anything but an anonymous guy asking a (possibly) hypothetical question. For something to be evidence there needs to be a crime, hearsay anonymous words on a website does not make for a crime.
posted by cedar at 12:35 PM on June 2, 2005


As posted to the AskMe thread, I've been asked to announce that anonymous has filed a report.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:20 PM on June 2, 2005


« Older Poker Meetup   |   Userphrases vs Usernames Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments