Garlasco case, no seizure of digital devices without selection criteria

The probative seizure of computer data makes possible the profiling of the personalities and movements of the persons concerned and allows detailed conclusions to be drawn on their behaviour, personal inclinations and ideas. Moreover, it could also affect third parties extraneous to the criminal offence and affect their personal sphere. That is why it is unlawful to seize, for evidentiary purposes, a computer system, such as a personal computer, 'which leads, in the absence of specific reasons and without a prior identification of the time reasonably necessary for the investigation, to an indiscriminate seizure of all the information contained therein'.

On 15 January, the Court of Cassation filed its grounds for rejecting the appeal by the Brescia Public Prosecutor's Office against the order by the Court of Re-examination, which on 17 November also annulled, on the appeal of Domenico Aiello, a lawyer, the second seizure order issued by the Prosecutor's Office on 24 October, of devices, including phones, PCs and tablets, belonging to Mario Venditti, the former Pavia prosecutor investigated in the on the Garlasco case that sees him accused of corruption in judicial acts.

The Supreme Court, in the case examined, begins by assessing the appropriateness of the time frame indicated by the Prosecutor for the search of the data. "In the seizure decree annulled by the Court of Brescia, the Public Prosecutor pointed out the objective complexity of the investigation and the need to fully consider the relations ─ which present anomalous profiles also in the light of the summary testimonial information given by Salvatore Campa ─ between the suspect Mario Venditti and the officers of the Judicial Police in charge of the investigation and the lack of clarity of the events relating to the availability by Sempio and his lawyers of a technical advice before it was officially made available'.

In this context ─ it is stated in the judgment ─ 'the reasons put forward to justify the breadth of the temporal segment of the data to be learnt ─ which in the present case includes the period, of approximately eleven years, during which the defendant Mario Venditti acted as Public Prosecutor in the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Pavia with respect to an indictment limited to a circumscribed period ─ are not incongruous'.

The indication as to the type of data, on the other hand, does not appear proportionate, with respect to the need to protect those directly concerned. Therefore, there was no indication of a perimeter indicating thequality and quantity of thecomputer data to be selected and acquired, so as to ensure the least invasiveness of the operation compatible with the needs of the investigation.