Jacksonville Divorce Attorney Blog
Recently, an Australian man had charges of rape dismissed because of text messages stored on his iPhone. It’s not uncommon for text messages to be used in such cases; what’s interesting is that the man had deleted the text messages several weeks earlier. Fortunately, an it expert was able to access those deleted messages and recover them for use in the rape case.
Text messages from phones are often difficult to access once they’ve been deleted, however; as a Jacksonville Divorce Lawyer I know that retrieval of these messages is possible. Specifically, your cell phone service provider may hold on to the content of text messages for a certain time period, so even if you delete them from your phone, they might be accessible. Often times a subpoena is necessary to retrieve the text message content.
This information has been important in many of my Jacksonville divorce cases because text messages may reveal valuable evidence regarding child custody, adultery, injunctions, etc. Typically, it is not a good idea to use text messages for intimate discussions or other conversations you may wish to keep private. If you don’t want something you say to be used against you, either don’t have the conversation or have it in person so there’s not a history of the conversation stored on your phone or computer. And remember, if you are going through a divorce, contact a Jacksonville Divorce Lawyer to discuss your questions or concerns.