There was a bit of drama on Twitter yesterday, when an attorney tweeted a link to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggesting that – despite the prosecutor’s denial – the city had dropped charges against a defendant rather than reveal information about its use of StingRay.
Today, Cyrus Farivar reports:
Prosecutors in St. Louis, Missouri, have seemingly allowed four robbery suspects to go free instead of explaining law enforcement’s use of a stingray in court proceedings.
The St. Louis case provides yet another real-world example where prosecutors have preferred to drop charges instead of fully disclose how the devices, also known as cell-site simulators, work in the real world. Last year, prosecutors in Baltimore did the same thing during a robbery trial.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the dismissal this month came just one day before a St. Louis police officer was set to be deposed in the robbery case where three men and a woman were accused of stealing from seven people in September 2013.
Read more on Ars Technica.