Saturday, June 12, 2021

A REVIEW ON CONNIE DABATE’S MURDER CASE: Fitbit One Wearable


The Author

 

ROSITO D. ORQUESTA

MSIT Student at Jose Rizal Memorial State University-Dapitan Campus

OIC-ICT Dean, Eastern Mindanao College of Technology

Internal Vice President, Council of Deans for ICT Education – Region IX

Sergeant, 62nd Philippine Air Force Reserve Group, 6th ARCEN

Assistant Information Officer, The Fraternal Order of Eagles – Maharlika 3

Member, Zeta Phi Omega 1975 International Fraternity



December 23, 2015 Connie Dabate was allegedly shot in the head by her own husband Richard Dabate who was arrested on April 14, 2016 few months after the incident due to the difficulty of proving his innocence of killing the mother of his two sons in their home on Birch View Drive, Ellington. –Yahoo News


Practical Aspects of Cybercrime Investigations and Digital Forensics

 

There are few things to consider before accepting digital evidences to prove someone’s innocence or to prosecute a criminal according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; (1) Digital Evidence Admissibility where the court examines the legal authorization to conduct searches and seizures of information and communication technology and related data, and the relevance, authenticity, integrity, and reliability of digital evidence in regards to (Antwi-Boasiako & Venter, 2017), (2) Digital Evidence Assessment where courts determine whether the appropriate legal authorization was used to search and seize information and communication technology (ICT) and related data. The types of legal authorization include a search warrant, court order, or subpoena. The legal order required to obtain ICT and ICT-related data varies by jurisdiction and is determined by national laws (see Cybercrime Module 7 on International Cooperation against Cybercrime), (3) Digital Evidence Consideration where courts conduct an assessment to the integrity of digital evidence by examining the digital forensics procedures and tools used to obtain the evidence, the competence and qualifications of the digital forensics experts who acquired, preserved, and analyzed the digital evidence, and (4) Digital Evidence Determination where the authenticity, integrity, and reliability of digital evidence is assessed based on the outcomes of the assessment of the digital forensics process conducted in the previous phase (i.e., the digital evidence consideration phase), such as the use of forensically sound methods and tools to obtain digital evidence and the testimony of expert witnesses and digital forensics analysts to corroborate the authenticity, integrity, and reliability of this evidence (Antwi-Boasiako & Venter, 2017) –you can read more on Cybercrime Module 6 Key Issues: Digital Evidence Admissibility (unodc.org).

 

On the Rules on Electronic Evidence No. 3 of the Senate Electoral Tribunal of the Republic of the Philippines - An electronic document is admissible in evidence if it complies with the rules on admissibility prescribed by the Rules of Court and related laws and is authenticated in the manner prescribed by these Rules (Philippines Patent No. A.M. NO. 01-7-01-SC.- RE: RULES ON ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE, 2001). Depending on how thorough the process has been taken by the judiciary system handling the case, any electronic evidences should be included in court trials.

 

 

 

 

The Murder Case

 

At around 10:05 in the morning of December 2015 at Ellington, Connecticut Richard Dabate contact the authority of a vulgar with homicide incident in his house killing his wife Connie Dabate, mother of his two sons. According to Richard Dabate as reported by the Hartford Courant, he had fought with a burglar until he had been subdued, just before said burglar had chased his wife, Connie Dabate, into the basement where he shot and killed her. He told the police, according to a police report, that the burglar had been a "tall, obese man" wearing "camouflage and a mask" and had sounded like actor Vin Diesel. Dabate said that the incident had occurred at 9 a.m. on December 23, after his wife had returned home from the gym. But the state police investigation says otherwise as reported by the New York Daily News, an analysis of the Dabate home's "alarm system, computers, cellphones, social media postings and Connie Dabate's Fitbit to create a timeline that contradicted Richard Dabate's statements to police." - (Byrd, 2017)

 

The Courant listed the device's timeline, which included two videos being posted to Facebook from Connie Dabate's cell phone at 9:40 and 9:46 a.m. She also posted a message to a friend on the social media platform. At 10:05 a.m., her Fitbit, which monitors personal metrics like heart-rate, sleep time, and the distance a person walks, registered its last bit of data after she had walked within the house a total of 1,217 feet.

 

Fitbit One the one Connie Dabate has been wearing during the incident tracks all the basic metrics, including sleep, steps taken, and distance walked and calories burned, and also tracks the number of floors you climb.

 

Acceptance on the use of Electronic Data as Counter Evidence to the Statement of Richard Dabate

 

In order to allow the Fitbit evidence, Dewey first had to determine whether the evidence from the device is reliable and relevant, and that jurors would be able to understand expert testimony on the subject.To do so, the judge heard testimony from Keith Diaz, a certified exercise physiologist and an assistant professor at Columbia University Medical Center, who testified that he has completed studies on the accuracy of Fitbit devices. Diaz testified that he had completed a study in which he had people walk and jog on a treadmill wearing several Fitbit devices that were counting their steps. At the same time, a camera was aimed at their feet to also count their steps (Knox, 2020).

The study determined that when worn on a person’s hip, as Connie Dabate was wearing her device the day she was murdered, the Fitbit detects movement accurately 98 percent of the time. However, under cross-examination from Dabate’s lawyer, Trent LaLima, Diaz revealed that the rate of error increased when the devices are used in a real world environment and not a controlled study. LaLima brought that up in his arguments to exclude the Fitbit evidence, saying that the error rate during real world use was too high, and was the only one that mattered, as that’s how Connie Dabate was using her device at the time of her death.

 

          A hearing is scheduled for February 2016 on defense efforts to keep the social media and alarm system information out of the trial. Under questioning by Tolland State’s Attorney Matthew Gedansky, Diaz testified that a variety of scientific studies have found that Fitbits, especially the kind found on Connie Dabate’s body when she was killed, accurately report physical activity. “It’s particularly useful and accurate for step counts,” Diaz said. The devices are generally accepted in the scientific community as a way of measuring physical activity, he said (Owens, 2020). Another user states that the Fitbit One has the tendency of counting "steps" while you're asleep and moving your body is prominent (Rettner, 2021).

 

What is working and not in this case

 

          We cannot deny the fact that all systems and application developed are far from perfection, the Fitbit One is not and exception with its deficiency in gathering actual step counts with 98% accuracy and that it becomes 10% more less accurate when use in real world steps not on a simulated environment like treadmill. Still a 90% accuracy along with text messages on the phone and social media account posts and his newly purchased gun are far better than the statement of Richard Dabate about a stocky 6ft 2in masked man with a “Vin Diesel voice” subduing him by a puncture point lock like most Kung-Fu movies portray.

 

Conclusion

 

          With the advancement in technology and the accuracy of computing specially in the latest development in quantum computing with big data and block chain as key players in this fourth industrial revolution, data collected by wearable devices should be included as evidence as long as its related data, the relevance, authenticity, integrity, and reliability of digital evidence are thoroughly evaluated for admission of the material to be presented in the court as per ruling by the United Nations and the national government of any country.

 

References

Antwi-Boasiako, A., & Venter, H. (2017). A Model for Digital Evidence Admissibility Assessment. IFIP International Conference on Digital Forensics (pp. 23-38). IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 511.: Springer, Cham.

Byrd, N. (2017). Richard Dabate Murders Wife, Blames Burglar, But Fitbit Tracker Proves Husband Lied, Police Say. www.inquisitr.com.

Connor, T. (2017). Fitbit Murder Case: Richard Dabate Pleads Not Guilty in Wife's Death. United States: NBC news.

Knox, M. P. (2020). Judge: Fitbit evidence to remain part of Dabate case. Connecticut: Journal Inquirer. Retrieved from www.journalinquirer.com: https://www.journalinquirer.com/crime_and_courts/judge-fitbit-evidence-to-remain-part-of-dabate-case/article_29722fd0-41dc-11ea-9d17-f7e57dd3bc7b.html

Owens, D. (2020). Judge allows Fitbit evidence into Richard Dabate murder trial, denies request to move trial or bar Ellington residents from jury. Connecticut: HARTFORD COURANT.

Rettner, R. (2021, June 10). Fitbit One: Fitness Tracker Review. Retrieved from www.livescience.com: https://www.livescience.com/43781-fitbit-one-fitness-tracker-review.html

Tribunal, S. E. (2001). Philippines Patent No. A.M. NO. 01-7-01-SC.- RE: RULES ON ELECTRONIC EVIDENCE.

UNODC. (2020, June 10). Module 6: Practical Aspects of Cybercrime Investigations and Digital Forensics. Retrieved from www.unodc.org: https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/cybercrime/module-6/key-issues/digital-evidence-admissibility.html

 

 


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A REVIEW ON CONNIE DABATE’S MURDER CASE: Fitbit One Wearable

T he Author   ROSITO D. ORQUESTA MSIT Student at Jose Rizal Memorial State University-Dapitan Campus OIC-ICT Dean, Eastern Mindanao College ...