As the previous blog mentioned, fitness trackers can track your every move and give valuable details in the context of litigation. And now, so can your pacemaker!
In what appears to be the first case of its kind, a Judge in Middletown, Ohio has allowed a patient’s pacemaker information to be used as evidence in a trial. Link to original story: http://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/judge-pacemaker-data-can-used-arson-trial/rzLdeTq6t8OG8lYxfSAg4M/
The Defendant, Ross Compton, claimed that he woke up to find a fire in his house, that he was able to pack some belongings and break out of his house unharmed.
Police, apparently suspicious of Mr. Compton’s ability to get certain items out of his house, searched his pacemaker data. The data includes heart rate, pacer demands and cardiac rhythms. A cardiologist who studied Ms. Compton’s data came to the conclusion that it was ‘highly improbable’ that Mr. Compton’s version of the events is true.
The Defendant’s attorney asked that the pacemaker evidence be thrown out as an invasion of his client’s constitutional rights. The Judge ruled that against defense counsel. Mr. Compton is scheduled to go to trial on December 4, 2017,
Medical records, and electronic data trackers, record a lot of very personal, very detailed information. And that information is increasingly being used in the legal system – criminal and civil – to corroborateor contradict, a party’s version of events. With all the digital and electronic footprints being left, it’s seems to be harder for people to hide from the truth.