Dougherty Co. judge explains importance of geofencing/digital evidence courses

ALBANY, Ga. – 24 judges across the United States were selected for specialized training for digital evidence, and one of those judges resides right here in Dougherty county.

“I learned so much, there were judges from California, Puerto Rico, Michigan, and I was the only judge selected from Georgia,” said Judge Victoria Johnson, Dougherty County Magistrate Court.

One process Judge Johnson learned more about in this digital evidence course was geofencing, which has been an integral part of recent investigation processes.

“The Geofence Google, is a search application tool where they can ping off the towers and know what cell phone were in a particular location,” said Judge Johnson.

Ending the days of non compliance from potential suspects in the area of a crime.

“If they go to a scene and they don’t know who did what, their asking us as judges to say we want to get a geofence warrant to get to know who was in a certain location at a certain time,” said Judge Johnson.

Since technology plays such a huge role in our day to day lives, there’s a lot of information that can be learned by using it as evidence.

“To be able to navigate technology and how it can be brought into a courtroom is important to be fair,” said Judge Johnson.

Privacy is also a focus as well, because…

“We have to balance the need for the evidence versus the privacy rights, so we got the 4th and 5th Amendment and so we want to balance those things,” said Judge Johnson.

Cameron Sanders reporting.

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