State v. Riley
Washington Supreme Court
846 P.2d 1365 (1993)
- Written by Alex Ruskell, JD
Facts
Northwest Telco Corporation provided long-distance telephone service. To use the service, customers dialed a general access number and then entered a six-digit code. A Northwest employee discovered that someone was calling the general number and entering random numbers every 40 seconds to try to discover access codes. The calls were traced to Joseph Riley (defendant), who was convicted of computer trespass. Under the state computer-trespass statute, a person was guilty of computer trespass if that person intentionally accessed a computer system or electronic database of another. Riley appealed to the Washington Supreme Court, arguing that he was not guilty of computer trespass because he did not enter, read, insert, or copy data from the telephone system’s computer.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Guy, J.)
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