Are there any guidelines on incorrectly guessing the password? With my laptop's encryption if I get the BIOS or disk password incorrect 3 times the encryption key is destroyed and some other stuff happens to the drive making it very hard (maybe impossible) to recover the data, even with the correct password. One could "attempt" the password 3 times and, deliberately or accidentally, get it wrong each time and permanently destroy the data. Of course if deliberate this could be seen as destroying evidence but how would they prove it was deliberate rather than just trying to comply with the courts orders?
Will be interesting to see where this goes. Non-lawyers who discuss these things are usually just entertaining an overly-simplistic, idealized view of law that favors defendants. A federal judge will have no trouble finding a way to hold her in indefinite contempt.