The judge who will sentence the North Carolina teenager who murdered five people in a 2022 neighborhood mass shooting has heard about the dark nature of his internet browsing history and Google search history. To try to counter it, an attorney for Austin Thompson tried to show that a browsing history can tell an incomplete or misleading story about a person. Kellie Mannette asked Sgt. Robert Pike of the Raleigh Police Department today (Friday, February 6), "Do y'all have a running joke in your department about if somebody saw your search history?" "No," Pike answered. “No? Okay. Might a police officer's search history look weird or strange if it were looked at because of their job?" Mannette asked. "Well, I think it's what perception you have on weird, I would say no," Pike answered. "Could somebody's job, for example, have them Google things that might look strange if you didn't know what their job was?" Mannette asked. (Thompson was an unemployed high school studet when he Googling phrases such as "Kid kills his brother and parents", "Do most people scream after being stabbed in the neck?", "What does it mean to hate society?" and "Does Miranda have to be read when arrested?") Pike said he believes "that most people separate their work from their personal data." "This is something that has been in our society for a bit now, mainly because people understand that some of that information when they're at work and doing things at work ... they can be seen by other people. So I would say that what people do at work would more than likely not be that interesting," Pike testified. "Unless they were in an interesting job, right? But even then, it would be very specific to whatever their job was and whatever their personal searches were," Pike continued. "So Sgt. Pike, where I'm sort of getting is context can matter to search histories. Is that right? Is that fair?" Mannette asked. "Yes," Pike answered. "And there can be reasons people search things that you can't surmise just from their search history. Is that fair?" Mannette asked. "Yes," Pike answered. Mannette is an attorney with Thomas, Ferguson & Beskind, LLP, in Durham, North Carolina, who was appointed to represent Thompson with Deonte' Thomas, Wake County's chief public defender. Thompson was 15 when he killed his 16-year-old brother, James, then murdered four people, including a Raleigh Police Department officer on his way to work in an Oct. 13, 2022, shooting spree that also injured a woman and another Raleigh police officer. Thompson, now 18, pleaded guilty last week to all charges, including five counts of first-degree murder and two counts of counts of attempted murder. He’s being sentenced pursuant to a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said people who committed a homicide when they were under 18 can’t be sentenced to life in prison without parole unless their youthfulness at the time of the offense is considered. The hearing before Judge Paul Ridgeway in North Carolina's 10th Judicial District will continue on Tuesday with testimony from defense witnesses. #law #crime #attorney #police #court - @meghannmcuniff