Police Blotter: Google searches nab hit-and-run driver
Police Blotter is a regular CNET News report on the intersection of technology and the law.
What: Google searches for phrases including "hit-and-run" nab California investment banker who claimed he believed he killed a deer instead of a person.
When: California appeals court rules on January 14, 2009.
Outcome: Conviction upheld.
What happened, according to court documents and other sources:
At about 9:00 p.m. on January 11, 2005, 55-year-old Gurdeep Kaur was dropped off on Moraga Boulevard, across the street from her home near Lafayette, Calif. She was on her way back from Terzetto Cuisine, an Italian restaurant that her family owned where she worked as a cook. Kaur began to cross the street--although not in a crosswalk, which was 1,000 feet away--and was wearing a white sweater and black pants.
She was struck by a car and killed. The driver left the scene, and police found no skid marks. Kaur was taken to a hospital and died of what a coroner would later rule to be "multiple blunt force injuries" caused by the impact.
Moraga police announced that the vehicle was a red or burgundy Jaguar XJ6 or XJ8 built between 1995 and 2003, based in part on debris at the scene including a hood ornament that snapped off as a result of the impact. They asked the public for leads.
Eventually their investigation led them to secure a warrant to search the home of Lee Harbert, a San Francisco Bay-area investment banker who had been convicted three times for driving while intoxicated. (Apparently at least some convictions had been expunged.) Inside his garage was a black 2000 Jaguar Vanden Plas that had been recently cleaned. It had body damage and police found one of the dead woman's earrings in the windshield well.
It's undisputed that Harbert was the driver who hit and killed Kaur that evening; the question is whether or not he violated the vehicle code requiring a driver involved in such an accident to stop and provide assistance to an injured person.
Harbert claimed he believed he hit a deer. He had consumed three drinks in Marin County during a long meeting earlier in the day and was driving home. He described the incident thusly: "And I looked...down the road, I looked immediately northbound, because I knew whatever had struck the car was large. I had no idea at the time what it was. God forbid that it was a person. Whether it was a large animal or... not... I didn't know." Also, because the police were looking for a red and burgundy Jaguar, he claimed to believe his accident was unrelated to the hit-and-run.
This could have remained a he said/she said situation except for a detail that makes this case relevant to Police Blotter: Harbert's Internet searches.
When police searched Harbert's house, they examined his computer. They found evidence of Google searches a few days after the accident for search terms including "auto glass reporting requirements to law enforcement," "auto glass, Las Vegas," auto parts, auto theft, and the Moraga Police Department. He allegedly also searched for "hit-and-run," which led him to a Web page dealing with the death of Kaur that said police had a lead on the vehicle.
During the trial, the prosecutor told the jury: "And I think what he did afterwards is extremely telling, also, the computer searches and Web pages. Auto parts, auto dealers out-of-state; auto glass, Las Vegas; auto glass reporting requirements to law enforcement, auto theft... The defendant didn't offer you any explanation for the auto theft, one, and he had a series of excuses for the other ones. But when you put them all together, the only reasonable conclusion was he was going to try to get the car fixed somewhere else far away so he wouldn't be found out, he was going to try and avoid having anything reported to law enforcement."
Harbert was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, with the trial judge lecturing him for a "display of arrogance and self-absorption... while you were on the stand." He appealed, saying that the prosecutors' arguments amounted to misconduct and that there was no evidence he had actual knowledge a person was hit. A California appeals court rejected his arguments this week.
This isn't the first time that police have used Google searches to nab suspects. Police Blotter has chronicled a 2006 case involving a wireless hacker ("how to broadcast interference over wifi 2.4 GHZ") and a 2008 case involving a woman convicted of murdering her husband ("decomposition of a body in water"). Searches in a 2005 murder case included "neck," "snap," and "break."
Excerpts from the opinion of the Court of Appeal, First District, California:
Defendant conceded that, notwithstanding his misgivings, he never contacted Moraga police. Defendant had no recollection of making many of the Internet searches recorded on his computer. He did recall the search for a glass shop to replace his windshield, but this was because the Jaguar agency he used did not do body work, and because he wanted to make sure he did not become involved in anything "covert" that would reflect adversely on "my level of responsibility" in retrospect...
As for defendant's conduct once he reached his home, i.e. the Internet searches, it is conclusive that his suspicion lingered and would not go away.
As already noted, the jury was entitled to reject defendant's testimony as to his state of mind. In light of the entirety of the circumstances, we conclude there was abundant evidence from which the jury could conclude that defendant did indeed have knowledge-actual or constructive-that he had collided with a human being on the evening of January 11, 2005, on Moraga Boulevard.
With the failure of this, the foundation of defendant's contention, the edifice he constructs on that foundation quickly collapses... Because defendant's Internet searches after January 11 are inextricably linked to his state of knowledge on January 11, they were an appropriate subject for argument by the prosecutor-and not misconduct...
The judgment of conviction is affirmed.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
Now about Google... Can you say "Big Brother". I have nothing to hide, and yet I am still nervous about the fact that all my search history is in a folder somewhere on Googles data banks along with my personal information for anyone to get. Now if that is not an infringement on privicy, then I do not know what is. That is out right scary! In tough economic times the creepest of people start to come out of the woodwork (can you say Adolf Hitler) and don't think the won't exploit your data that could be very innocent today but not in their eyes. Time for me to start looking for another searh engine for sure, NOW!
Actually this isn't an infringement of your privacy. Google openly states that it collects data, and if you have ever signed up for a Google service (Gmail, etc) and willingly provided your "private information", then you can reasonably assume that it, and your usage data, is stored and could be identified.
Respectfully, you have willingly provided Google - after they have made you aware of their data collection - with usage data.
Privacy infringement comes into affect when a person has a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' (dressing rooms, restrooms, their home, etc), not when you walk buy a sign that says "you are being watched". Google has provided a sign (warning) that states exactly this. They say, "we are collecting your information".
To avoid this, either use private browsing, public computers, refrain from logging into any online service, or disconnect from the internet altogether.
I commend you for taking the initiative to "look for another search engine" and looking out for your private information. I will warn you, any search engine you use will track your usage - it is how they make money and provide statistics for internal and external decisions.
I have dealt with huge amounts of tracking data when it comes to websites. Because I do not need to know the identity of the visitor, I am provided with data that shows:
- the IP address of *A* visitor
- pages that have been viewed, and the number of times viewed
Rest assured that a brain-less computer is doing the calculations most people view as an infringement of their privacy. Likely, if you have nothing to hide, your casual browsing history will not be scrutinized by a real life person.
Therefore, changing search engines wouldn't help you. However, if you do continue to use Google, try keywords "SAT Verbal Prep" and "Remedial English tutoring"
-R
Word!
Were you never a kid?
to imply he knew that he hit a person just from his search terms is pretty bad form of connection. So with this logic maybe if I search for "weight loss" means I want to kill all fat people?
So yeah, if they found a bunch of fat people dead in your basement, hacked up with a chainsaw in your tool shed with your fingerprints all over it and you somehow claimed you thought they were hippos, then they could likely use the fact that you searched for "weight loss" for the next week to prove you really did know they were fat people and not hippos.
Still to much for your brain cell to grasp? That's why dropping out of school is a bad idea.
I have searched for 'Hitler' and "SS" before because I happen to think the SS uniforms are amongst the most stylish and effective dress uniforms of any military in history.
That doesn't mean I am a skin head or the deaths of an entire race of people either. But if you look at my browser history, I could also type in the author's name of " Declan McCullagh" and "vegemite sandwiches." Does that mean the police can use that as evidence too?
It's ridiculous and any competent judge should be able to dismiss this 'evidence'. If they allow it, then it is a very slippery slope indeed.
BTW, browser histories could prove exculpatory -- you're searching for something at a specific time at home when the cops say you're at a crime scene. So using them is intrusive, yes, but not all bad.
In regards to another "rich guy" case going on right now (you all know who I mean), just how much money does a rich guy have to steal before he gets jail time? (Sounds like the start of a joke. How many light bulbs...).
- by idfubar January 17, 2009 8:11 PM PST
- If he really thought he hit someone then why wouldn't he have checked the car meticulously for further evidence (like the earring) and gotten his car fixed right away (rather than letting it sit in the garage with damage)?
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- by spurs11 January 19, 2009 3:26 PM PST
- Reason: most drunks are lazy so your assessment is weak. Also, he was clearly trying to cover his tracks. The evidence in this case was overwhelming so for the people defending him or looking for cracks in the case, get a backbone, grow up and check your head. It's obvious this loser is guilty.
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(22 Comments)I dislike the focus on this story because (1) it's tragic for all parties involved, (2) the "Google Searches" are arguably not central to the case & any implications it might have, and (3) the appellate court is really only ruling on the validity of the jury's decision, not its correctness.
3 yrs is not justice for manslaughter. If he had stopped and called the police, 3 yrs would be spot on as he was DRUNK!