This concept of being able to track people's phones is called Ping technology (P-I-N-G), and it has to do will cell towers being all around Los Angeles and people using their phones; this is one tiny piece of evidence that prosecutors and police can use to try and convict somebody of a crime.  I've seen it used in all sorts of different crimes.

Probably the major crime would be burglary.  So, for example, what's happening is a crew of burglars are going out and are working together.  Someone's driving the car.  Two people are dropped off at a location.  They burglarize it.

The person driving the car is called by the people who go into the house.  They come and pick them up, and off they go.  Nobody sees them commit the burglary, yet we know that it occurred, and now the police are left with somebody whose home has been ransacked and property taken, and they don't have many leads on getting the person.

A lot of these crews are not just doing this once.  They're doing it multiple times.  So, what the police will do is they will build evidence.  They will get eyewitnesses if there are any.  They will get DNA and fingerprints.  People will post things on their social media.  There are all sorts of things, but this Ping evidence can be valuable.  It doesn't put the person at an exact location like a tracking device might, but who's wearing tracking devices to commit crimes.

By the way, I've had clients who were monitored by probation on tracking devices commit crimes.  That's much easier to prove for the prosecutors, but this Ping evidence probably puts the person within a mile or two of their phone or wherever they're.

So, if they're close to a burglary scene at a particular time, that would certainly be one piece of evidence.  That evidence alone is not going to be enough to get somebody.  But they're using this Ping evidence, especially if there are multiple burglaries and the person happens to be within a mile of numerous burglaries; they have other evidence to substantiate their involvement. Our Los Angeles criminal defense lawyers will explain further below.

Defending Cases That Are Using Ping Evidence

Now, you're in a position to file a case.  So, when I have this Ping evidence, I know the questions to ask of their expert, their law enforcement officer, and then a lot of times, were going to have to get our expert to look at the records and make sure.

Number one, that they're not being misrepresented, and number two, to make sure that the stuff that's good for the defense is brought out in the Ping evidence because the prosecutors certainly aren't going to point out any facts that might be helpful to the defendant.

So, that's the defense attorney's job, obviously, but getting an expert is a brilliant idea.  Let them evaluate all Ping evidence and help formulate some questions for the defense attorney — help develop some arguments about the limitations of this Ping evidence. So, suppose you have a case where the prosecutors rely on Ping evidence. In that case, you want to get a defense attorney who has handled this type of evidence, knows how to be successful, knows how to attack it, and knows its limitations.

I think that's a crucial thing in criminal defense because there's always another side to the coin.  There's always another story.  This Ping technology is relatively new, but prosecutors are effectively using it throughout Los Angeles, and if you've got one of these cases, pick up the phone. We'll sit down and go over everything, and I'll see what I can do to help defend your case, get you in the best position, and get out of the criminal justice system as fast as possible.