Boston Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
An officer who runs a cell phone extraction tool and an expert in digital forensics are not interchangeable witnesses in a Massachusetts criminal trial. The distance between them can decide how much of a phone’s contents a jury ever hears in a Massachusetts drug case. The Supreme Judicial Court drew that line in 2025 and returned to it on July 9, 2026, in Commonwealth v. Watson, SJC-13850, turning aside a reading of the earlier decision that would have erased the distinction.
A cell phone extraction report is the output of forensic software that unlocks a device and copies its contents into a readable file. Under Commonwealth v. Cronin, 495 Mass. 170 (2025), an officer trained on that software may testify to the steps he performed to generate the report. He may not testify that the tool is reliable or accurate.
The Argument the Commonwealth Made and Lost
The Commonwealth’s position in Watson was that running an extraction tool is not forensic analysis at all, because the report it produces “can be generated by a layperson with basic training and read by anyone.” The court rejected that. The Commonwealth had already conceded in the trial court that digital forensic analysis is a type of forensic science requiring scientific knowledge, and the SJC held that digital extraction of cell phone data involves the application of a forensic or scientific technique.
The court also corrected the reading of Cronin the Commonwealth was pressing. Cronin permits a lay witness trained to use the tool to describe the steps he took. It does not permit that witness to attest to the tool’s reliability and accuracy, because that testimony calls for knowledge of the forensic and scientific techniques built into the software.
Watson itself came up through a request for postconviction forensic testing. The part of it that reaches an ordinary trial is its account of Cronin, which is the case governing who may say what about an extraction report in front of a jury.
How an Extraction Works, and Where It Can Fail
The digital forensics expert who testified in Watson described extraction as a multistep process: seizing the physical device properly, defeating password protection to decrypt its contents, and extracting and memorializing data from the phone and from any attached SIM or SD card. Brute-force methods can open a locked handset. What comes off it can include user-deleted content, call logs, text message logs, GPS coordinates, and encrypted data from applications.
The same testimony identified how the process goes wrong. Errors in applying the techniques can cause data loss. Mishandling the physical device can overwrite, modify, or destroy what is stored on it. A phone that has been powered on can also begin overwriting older data on its own, which is why an analyst should pull the data as soon as the device is live.
Where the Line Shows Up in a Boston Drug or Gun Case
Most Massachusetts prosecutions that lean on a phone follow one pattern. Police seize the device, an officer runs the extraction, and the Commonwealth offers message threads, photographs, or a call log to tie a person to trafficking under G. L. c. 94C, § 32E or to unlawful carrying of a firearm under G. L. c. 269, § 10(a).
All of that has to come in through a witness. When the only witness is the officer who operated the software, his testimony reaches what he did and stops there. Whether the extraction captured the device completely, whether the software attributed a thread to the right account, whether deleted material came back intact, and whether anything changed between seizure and extraction sit on the far side of the line Cronin drew. If the case against you rests on a thread of text messages, that limitation is worth pressing before trial rather than after.
Patrick J. Murphy has defended Massachusetts criminal cases since 1994, much of that work in the Boston Municipal Court and the Suffolk County district courts. In a case built on a phone, the questions worth asking early are which version of the tool produced the report, who ran it, when the device was first powered on, and whether the extraction itself was produced in discovery or only the summary.
Contact a Boston Lawyer About the Phone Evidence in Your Case
The Law Office of Patrick J. Murphy defends drug and firearm charges in the Boston Municipal Court, Suffolk Superior Court, and district courts across the Commonwealth, including cases that rest on what came off a phone. The office is at 90 Canal St 4th Floor, and consultations are free. Call (617) 367-0450 or contact the office to go through what the Commonwealth says your phone shows.