Force the police to prove that they deleted the results of the analysis, I assume. And yes, if they'd get to that point, the police would need to produce a watertight audit trail. Depending on how much will there is to actively fight back, possibly in retailiation to discourage further breaches of procudure, they might be able to archive a lot due to the disconnection from national security and the legal standing they have on this. Also, German courts usually order looser pays all. As Attorney fees are capped according to some tables, in relation to the sum being fought over, this usually isn't a problem. You don't get interest back though.

How do you prove that you deleted something?

Prove means something differently here. You subpoena records and get every damn email, piece of paper, SMS, meeting transcript, etc. related to the computers. You get invoices from contractors who worked on it. You subpoena the people involved and establish exact timelines of what everyone did, and when.

If these records are incomplete, the judge decides against the police with prejudice.

If the records are complete and there isn’t indications they copied the data and performed analysis entirely off the books, then we say that we’ve proven analysis didn’t happen.

You can't, unless very specific measures were taken beforehand (which doesn't happen normally). You need to testify under oath that you did and the other side needs to hope that the punishment for lying under oath is worse for you than the consequences for them when it wasn't deleted.

Paper trail of where it could have ended up maybe? And I mostly mean that if the testifying human isn't impartial, he would require physical evidence to corroborate his testimony, despite the oath.

The reason being sufficient examples and even game-theoretic arguments (mind you, these are 'nerds', they can find someone well-versed in game theory if needed) show a lack of (expected) trustworthiness of a non-corroborated testimony of such a human.

>They're requesting in writing that no analysis was done, because then when they get the equipment back and see that yup, analysis was done, they can then I assume sue for... Something?

I'd assume if you're involved in a lawsuit against the police, and they make a factual claim like "we did not analyze items not listed in the warrant", that there's some sort of perjury type charge there.

While the police are allowed to lie to you, that's usually restricted to interrogations ("your partner has already flipped") not lying to the lawyer for the person suing you.

This isn't how it works in the United States at least. The police are allowed to lie to you, your lawyer, the media, anyone they want to, as long as they are not under oath. They may be held civilly liable for lies that cause damages but only after overcoming their qualified immunity. Lieing to the court even when not under oath could lead to a contempt change.

>This isn't how it works in the United States at least. The police are allowed to lie to you, your lawyer, the media, anyone they want to, as long as they are not under oath.

That seems like you're playing semantics.

A contempt charge is a type of criminal charge. My contention is that if a lawyer, during discovery, asks the police a question like "did you analyze the data" and they lie they'd face issues.

So it looks like we're in agreement :)

You are in spirit in agreement, but I don't think he played on words. Just stating (how awful, personal opinion) how it is in the US.

To my knowledge the police in Germany is not allowed to lie to you during interrogations in the sense you put it.

https://dejure.org/gesetze/StPO/136a.html

According to this law, deception is a prohibited interrogation method.

No idea how this is handled in practice and what the loopholes are.

I have a vague memory of a confession in Switzerland being invalidated because of this, but can't find a source at the moment.