As long as you aren’t doing it during an active investigation, no it wouldn’t be illegal. That’s the problem. Guy thought he was sneaky, and got busted. If you come in to investigate and suddenly you are deleting all the records, you are going to have a serious problem.
In the regular world, you can delete something to keep the cops from knowing about it as long as it’s not covering up a crime. You won’t find a charge of “destruction of evidence” without an investigation of an explicit crime with probable cause.
If they had probable cause to search his phone, they would have used it when he was in Georgia, not waited for him at the airport where he had fewer rights.
As long as you aren’t doing it during an active investigation, no it wouldn’t be illegal. That’s the problem. Guy thought he was sneaky, and got busted. If you come in to investigate and suddenly you are deleting all the records, you are going to have a serious problem.
In the regular world, you can delete something to keep the cops from knowing about it as long as it’s not covering up a crime. You won’t find a charge of “destruction of evidence” without an investigation of an explicit crime with probable cause.
If they had probable cause to search his phone, they would have used it when he was in Georgia, not waited for him at the airport where he had fewer rights.