upvote
Being held in contempt at least means you got a day in court first. A judge telling me to give up my password is different than a dozen armed, masked secret police telling me to.
reply
> A judge telling me to give up my password is different than a dozen armed, masked secret police telling me to.

Yes, a judge is unlikely to order your execution if you refuse. Based on recent pattern of their behavior, masked secret police who are living their wildest authoritarian dreams are likely to execute you if you anger them (for example by refusing to comply with their desires).

reply
I don't practically see it happen, but you have to be careful once you are in a jail though, because there are often few limits on what the administration of the jail can do to you for any supposed violation of the jail rules (which they can legally make up on a whim, and due process is extremely limited). In Illinois, at least, a county Sheriff has unlimited power to punish a detainee in any extreme way they can imagine for even the very slightest infraction. There are no laws (statutes) which define what a "crime" is inside jail and what the punishment for it is. If it wasn't for SCOTUS limiting the death penalty to certain levels of behavior (e.g. murder) then a sheriff would be able to simply legally execute a detainee for pretty much anything.
reply
That's a very unusual and narrow exception involving "foregone conclusion doctrine", an important fact missed by Ars Technica but elaborated on by AP: https://apnews.com/general-news-49da3a1e71f74e1c98012611aedc...
reply
> Authorities, citing a “foregone conclusion exception” to the Fifth Amendment, argued that Rawls could not invoke his right to self-incrimination because police already had evidence of a crime. The 3rd Circuit panel agreed, upholding a lower court decision.

I do not follow the logic here, what does that even mean? It seems very dubious. And what happens if one legitimately forgets? They just get to keep you there forever?

reply
And why do they need to unlock your phone if they already proved you did the crime?
reply
It means that if all the other evidence shows that the desired evidence is on the computer, then it is not a question of whether it exists, so youre not really searching for something. Youre retrieving it. That doesn't implicate the 4th amendment.
reply
You're delusional. When ICE starts executing people on the spot for not giving up iPhone passwords, I'll eat my words.
reply