Proving Harassment Claims Involving Electronic Devices in Idaho

Attorney Answer

A polygraph will not help you here — even a passed test would only reflect what you sincerely believe, not what actually happened to you, and it is not the kind of evidence that resolves a case.

That distinction is the crux of your question. A polygraph measures physical responses while a person answers questions. It is aimed at sincerity, not at events. Nobody who reviews your situation — an officer, a prosecutor, or a judge — is going to doubt that you believe what you are telling them. What they will need is evidence of an identifiable person doing an identifiable thing, and that is what a polygraph cannot supply.

The harassment statutes are structured the same way. Idaho Code § 18-7906 defines stalking in the second degree: knowingly and maliciously engaging in a course of conduct that seriously alarms, annoys, or harasses the victim and is not legitimate, and that would cause a reasonable person substantial emotional distress or fear of death or physical injury. Nonconsensual contact expressly includes contacting the victim by telephone, causing the victim's telephone to ring repeatedly, and sending mail or electronic communications. Idaho Code § 18-6710 is Idaho's telecommunication-harassment statute: it criminalizes contacting another by telecommunication, email, text message, or any other form of electronic communication with intent to annoy, terrify, threaten, intimidate, harass, or offend, including through threats of physical harm or repeated telecommunication that disturbs the peace. A first offense is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in county jail; repeat convictions can be a felony.

Both statutes require the same two things: a named person, and a course of conduct that can be proved. Neither one reaches an unidentified source, and neither provides a way to establish that a device caused physical injury.

That brings up the part of your account that deserves attention first. Nosebleeds and bodily harm are real symptoms with real medical causes, and there are many — blood pressure, medication, dry air, blood-clotting issues, sinus conditions — that produce exactly what you are describing. Getting examined is not a detour from your legal question. A medical record is genuine, dated, third-party evidence of your injuries, which is more than a polygraph could ever be, and it may also give you an answer and treatment.

What you can do

1. See a doctor about the nosebleeds and any other physical symptoms, and ask for the findings in writing. Do this first — it is both the health step and the evidence step. 2. Keep a dated log. For each incident: date, time, exactly where you were, what you experienced, and anyone who was present. Contemporaneous records are what investigators can work with; recollections are not. 3. Preserve anything electronic you have actually received — calls, texts, messages, voicemails — with the sender's number or address and timestamps. That is what Idaho Code § 18-6710 and § 18-7906 are built to address. 4. Work out whether you can name a specific person. Without a name, there is no one for police to investigate and no one a court can order to stop, no matter how strong the evidence of harm is. 5. If you can name someone, take your log, your medical records, and your saved messages to your local police department and ask that a report be taken. Get the report number. 6. If there is an identified person contacting or following you, ask the court clerk about petitioning for a civil protection order. That is a separate process from any criminal charge and you can start it yourself. 7. Do not spend money on a polygraph examination for this purpose. It will not produce the proof you are looking for.