Is It Really A Crime?

Can a wife can expect to have privacy with a computer she shares with her husband? That is, is it identity theft for a husband or wife to enter the other's mailbox and read his or her mail, even if in a despearte attempt to catch the other committing a wrong? Well, the head prosecutor in Michigan thinks it is. He has accepted felony charges against a man named Leon Walker after Leon did just that in an attempt to try to see if his wife was having an affair with another man.
Oh, my. Now Leon could go to jail (up to 5 years in this case) for spying in his soon to be ex wife's computer cheating. The Mrs. was so upset at getting caught cheating that she filed not only for divorce from Leon, but also asked that Leon be arrested and charged with hacking into another E mail. Leon says he was protecting his child from a cheating mom because mom was having a relationship with a registered wife beater who was a danger to Leon's son. Anyway, Leon has been arrested, charged and goes to trial soon.

I find the whole idea of a prosecutor trying to send a person to jail for the common "crime" of looking at a spouse's mail a bit extreme application of a law that is meant for more malicious instances of identity theft, stealing secrets for financial gain, slandering others etc.? Is listening in on a telephone conversation one's wife is having with a lover a crime too? What about the wife's adultery in this instance, which has been admitted by her? Is that prosecutable offense too? Technically that isalso illegal, but no charges have been filed against Mrs. Walker by that prosecutor for the "crime" of adultery.

This application is a perversion of the anti hacking law. Remember, Leon did nothing malicious after entering her mailbox. He checked to see if she was cheating, and when he found the evidence o confirm his suspicion he printed it to confront the parties who were cheating. Surely, it is wrong to spy on another person and to use their E mail boxes in do so. But making a crime for it is extreme.

To make every dispute between the husband and wife illegal would make a farce of any marriage. If for example, Mrs. Walker threw a rolling pin at Leon for coming in late at night, would that be a battery offense a prosecutor should charge Mrs. Walker with? Suppose Leon took $10 from his wife's wallet to pay the pizza delivery man for pizza ordered for their child? Is that a crime of theft to prosecute too? There are a plethora of similar "crimes" that married couples commit between each other. Haha Well, maybe that proves that marriage really is a crime, but prosecuting for it makes no sense.

The cuckolded husband should be excused for trying to protect his son. Unless a marriage contract specifies that one cannot read his wife's email, the husband is only ethically guilty of spying, not criminally guilty for doing it. Hmmm I suppose, like so many cheated spouses do, he should have hired a private investigator to check on Mrs. Walker because the law says that's not a crime. Strange!

But the whole idea that a district attorney would bring charges for something like this is....well, criminal.