Man fights felony hacking charge for accessing adulterous wife's email

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http://www.detnews.com/article/20111...acking-defense





Detroit— Lawyers fighting to prevent a Rochester Hills man from facing trial for allegedly hacking into his wife's email account said Tuesday a change in the law may be their last hope.

Leon Walker, 34, was charged in March with entering his wife's Gmail account without permission. He claims he found Clara Walker's password written down, and then allegedly discovered through her messages that she was having an extramarital affair. They are now divorced.

A three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday over whether the case should proceed to trial in Oakland County's courts. The appeals panel will issue its opinion later. But its chairman, Judge Peter O'Connell, said the judges plan to weigh only the words of the law, not what the Legislature intended when the anti-hacking statute was enacted at the dawn of the Internet 22 years ago.

Walker's lawyers have argued that the law was aimed at those with intent to steal, damage or defraud, not at a husband who reads his wife's diary or other personal documents that might be found in their shared home.

Walker's appellate attorney, Matthew Klakulak, said Tuesday that Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper's interpretation of the law was "ridiculous" because it could also result in charges against parents checking on their children's use of the Internet.

Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Jeffrey Kaelin told the judges that his office believes the law also could be applied to people who are stealing access to the Internet by "hacking" into a neighbor's Wi-Fi connection by guessing the password.

"Sometimes you have to step outside the strict construction of statutes and apply common sense," said Walker's criminal attorney, Leon Weiss, who complained the Legislature never imagined minor offenses to be prosecuted under the felony statute. "Otherwise, prosecutors are going to be able to go after a lot of husbands and wives."

A change in the law was proposed in April by state Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, and is being studied in committee. It proposes exempting spouses and parents of minor children, if they share a home, own the computer, don't damage or delete any documents and don't use force or coercion to gain access to password-protected files and programs.

McMillan's proposal also contains a clause that would make the change retroactive to include any cases, like Walker's, that have yet to result in conviction