But what worries me is that all of this will have to be eventually dumbed down to an explanation that a jury of average joes can understand. The increasingly technical complexity of evidence in some of these cases worries me that our system doesn't have an adequate way to deal with it.
This isn't a case that hinges on a technical nuance. It will be practically impossible for DPR to convince a jury that there is any reasonable doubt as to his guilt.
I mean, the actual box was presumably seized after a proper warrant for searching a specific physical location. The question is would the fact that his stuff was searched be considered "fruit of the poisoned tree" since the servers were identified through that IP or as "inevitable discovery" since if he's a suspect, it's standard procedure to search his stuff anyways. But IANAL so I'm not sure how it works in USA.
Isn't that for the judge to decide? Judge decides what can be presented to the jury, and jury renders the verdict, right?
Then the argument doesn't need to be dumbed down for the jury. They won't see it at all.
Although the argument will still probably have to be dumbed down for the judge.
Not necessarily. They could give up the right to a jury trial and go for a bench/judge trial. That's often done in complex or technical cases (the reasoning being that, despite the pro-state biases, better to appeal to an experienced and known-intelligent person like a judge than to risk the prejudices of the common man).
Indeed. Then, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", and you have some ingredients for a witch-hunt.
Jurors don't switch off because they are learning how to move money between banks or break into servers - they switch off because it takes three months to present a case.
You think a cop did this? No... the FBI has technical personnel. Just like any corporation, they have different departments to fulfill different needs.
This is the equivalent of is the FBI allowed to search my trash if the trash is in a trashcan on my property or on the sidewalk, being pulled by a street cleaner or knocked over by a fox. We can make it as complicated as we like but the law needs to draw some lines somewhere and stick to them.